Sometimes a Mudge is Just a Mudge. Or Not.

One day recently Lily came home from school with a dog she'd cut out of paper attached to a popsicle stick. The dog was colored brown, with clearly delineated features and a magic-markered collar. It resembled a puppet, which I thought it actually was. But no. The dog was Mudge, from the Henry and Mudge books they've been reading in class, and he came with strings attached, the metaphorical kind.

The idea, Lily explained to me with great excitement, was that we were to take Mudge places with us and photograph him, with or without Lily in the shot. For example, if we went grocery shopping, Mudge could come too, and I could snap a shot of Lily holding him in the grocery cart. If we went on the subway, Mudge could be photographed going through the turnstyle or "sitting" on a seat by himself. What a clever idea, I thought. How fun and whimsical!

The following Saturday morning I happened to take both girls to the greenmarket. Let's bring Mudge along, I suggested. Lily was thrilled to do so , glad I'd remembered, and as Mudge weighs about a gram, we didn't even have to have our usual fight about who was going to carry her stuff after the first two minutes of our outing. At the market, I photographed Lily and Mudge in front of a pile of pumpkins. We ran into Lily's friend Alex and his mom, and I photographed Lily, Alex and Mudge in front of some giant buckets full of eucalyptus. When we got home, I photographed Lily holding Mudge in front of our building. A few days later, Mudge came along to Sadie's dog graduation and was prominently featured in a group shot of all the actual dogs and their owners. Lily looks tired but happy in this one, holding up Mudge on a stick two hours past bedtime.

The next weekend, we were going out to Connecticut, and Lily suggested we bring Mudge along. Sure, I said, but when Mudge fell onto the floor halfway down the Merritt Parkway I didn't really want to pull over so he could be picked back up. When Mudge got wet at lunch, I suggested we cover his body with tape, a suggestion that like so many of mine these days, was met with scorn and condescension. When we got back to the city Sunday night, I realized after putting the girls to bed and unpacking our endless bags of stuff that Mudge had been left in the car.

The next morning, when Lily suggested we bring Mudge to school, I "forgot" him in the chaos of getting out of the house. By the time the following Friday rolled around, I had almost forgotten about Mudge altogether, but as soon as we got back in the car, there he was--missing a foot. I taped it back on, assured Lily that the water smudges all over his body gave him character, and wondered if a strong wind could possibly blow Mudge right out of Lily's hand and into the country sky.

From that point on Mudge became the mosquito in your bedroom at night you hear buzzing around your head but can't see when you turn on the light. He was everywhere and nowhere: everywhere because I kept thinking every time we left the house "Oh, I forgot the stupid dog," and nowhere because I never remembered him and we never took any pictures.

Right now, Mudge is on the kitchen counter. After that first blast of photos, I haven't taken anymore, and we just got a reminder from the teacher that the Mudge shots are due in-house asap. Tomorrow, I will make myself take a few more, download them and order prints, because that is what parents do. We deal with Mudge even when we really feel like setting a match to him.

Here's the thing. When we first started carting Mudge around, I thought it was fun, just like Lily did. Once the initial novelty factor had faded, though, I found Mudge a nuisance and a new sort of nuisance for me: a task meant for Lily and assumed by me out of responsibility or guilt, like the actual dog parents in books and on television shows are always forced to assume care for once the child inevitably loses interest herself.

What interests me here is that when I started to see Mudge as a minor burden, and then as a major pain in the ass, it never once occurred to me that I was complicit in the transformation. Tonight, as I was washing dishes, I noticed Mudge lying there half-buried on top of a pile of mail. Lily hadn't asked about him in days. I picked him up and straightened his folds, propped him up against the toaster, where he took on a jaunty, optimistic air.

Something somebody said to me today reminded me that in most things, especially attitude, we do have a choice. A large part of how I see Mudge is my decision. Mudge can be a symbol of the burdens of parenting or, in a world I'd rather live in, a cheerful, clever reminder that the world is still a magical place to my 4-year-old and need not be anything else for me. Mudge can be one more thing to add to my to-do list and my chronic low-grade resentment, or a way for Lily and I to take on what is actually a very small and eminently charming project as a team and part of our classroom community.

I think once the pictures are taken, the Mudge period over at school, I will keep Mudge around for a while, maybe stick him in a potted plant or on the dresser by my bed where my eyes will pass over him regularly. If Lily asks me why Mudge is hanging out in my room, I will say, merely, "Because I decided I wanted to keep him."