In need of a good night’s sleep

Sometimes, kids have really stupid ideas. I know this, because when I was a kid, I had a stupid idea.
Growing up without a dog, I longed to have to one. I wanted a dog to play with, a dog to walk and — here comes the stupid idea — a dog that I could snuggle up to at night.
Fast forward to when I was 18 and finally had my own puppy and what did I do? I played with him, I walked him, and I let him sleep in the bed with me.
Stupid idea. I’m paying for it now.
Last night, for the third night in a row, I reconfigured an arrangement of laundry baskets, TV trays and kitchen table chairs around the perimeter of our bed.
“Hey, you’re trapping me in,” my husband said as I flipped the laundry baskets around, trying to figure what angle I could place them at that would least embolden my dog to jump over them and on to the bed.
“I am going to get a good night’s sleep tonight,” I muttered back to him.
Here’s the deal: The dog knows that my husband can be dangerous to sleep next to. In the middle of the night, not conscience of his actions, my husband has been known to kick and push any objects pushing into him — like the dog.
So the dog leaves him alone. Instead, he comes over to my side of the bed and nestles up against the back of my legs. As the night goes on, he stretches out from paw to paw until he’s five-feet of dog pushing against my back.
And then I wake up. “Get down, Sensi,” I mumble to him, half-asleep. He stands up like he’s going to get down, knowing that he only has to stand there until my head falls back to the pillow and then he once again nestles into the covers.
We repeat this exercise throughout the night and by morning, I’m tired and my back hurts. But the dog always looks very refreshed.
I have tried to persuade Brent to let me put those bed rails designed to keep kids from falling off their beds on ours.
“I don’t want those things on the bed,” Brent said. “Just tell him to stay off of it.”
Yeah, and after nearly eight years of him not having to do that, he’s just going to listen. Right.
So, my laundry basket-kitchen chair-TV tray perimeter is going to have to work, except it hasn’t. At least not for the past three nights. But you can bet I’ll be trying again tonight.