Sleep deprivation: threat or menace?

What does it take to get some shuteye around here? I'm exhausted. Grandma has been visiting, and that means I've been kicked out of my room.

You know what it's like to have to sleep on the couch when visitors come? That's what I'm going through. The door to my room remains shut tight. No Tuckers allowed. I've been moping around, looking as morose as possible, hoping someone will take pity on me.

No such luck.

Instead, Grandma blames my depression on meeting some lower-class dogs at the Medway dog park, where I have just gained admission (I actually had a great time. More on that later, when I'm feeling better.). Why she persists in this erroneous line of thinking, I do not know.

So, it's from the beanbag to the crate, the chair in Mom and Dad's room, the sleeping cushion in the family room, my sister's bed...I just keep switching from place to place, disoriented, practically falling to pieces.

As Mom learned from Ashley Merryman's visit to Wellesley this week, she of the book Nurture Shock, sleep deprivation is cumulative; after a week of losing an hour's sleep a night, you've lost a whole night! Grandma's visiting for a whole week. How much is that in dog years?