“Take my picture!” Sophie demanded first thing this morning.

I really mean first thing. It was 6. Between the big girl bed and summer’s approach, there will be no more sleeping in — not for a while, at least.

Sophie was sitting on the floor next to Rosy, thumb in her mouth, rubbing the dog’s fur. She clearly thought she looked cute and I agreed and thought, I better take pictures now, while I can, so I grabbed the phone to snap one.

Rosy is 14. As I write this, the vet is at the house (bless Dr. Kennaway, our mobile vet) to give Jack his last puppy shots, and also to take a look at Rosy.

Rosy pooped on the kitchen floor this morning. That’s not unusual and I can’t blame her. When I’m her age (what is that in dog years? 98?) I expect I’ll poop on the kitchen floor, too. I also plan to eat whatever the hell I want, which is why I’ve taken to sneaking Rosy lots of baloney and other people food. Rosy is arthritic and Dr. Kennaway gives her pills that control the pain and make it a little easier to get around, but still, she has accidents.

We have some very old pets. Izzy the Cornish Rex (the almost hairless, scary looking, rat-like white cat Ray absolutely adores and to be fair, even I consider her a member of the family) is 15 and for a few weeks not long ago, she peed by the kitchen sink several times a day. Rosy’s once-black muzzle is quickly going gray. She’s pretty deaf. At some point, quality of life will diminish enough that It Will Be Time.

I can’t think about it. Ray is right when he says that I don’t spend enough quality time with Rosy; to be honest, I never have, and that dropped dramatically after the kids were born. I won’t pretend that I’ve been a Good Dog Mom. But I love Rosy, she’s my first child in that way that dogs are your kids before you have kids, and I named her after my most sacred possesion, Rosie the Blanket. (Note the different spellings.) We have spent our share of time hanging out together.

Now, Sophie’s the only one in the house with a really serious sensory thing going on (one of the things to be addressed with the elusive occupational therapist at school) and she’s pretty obsessive about rubbing her fingers over her bangs, Piglet’s ear, or the bristles of a paintbrush. We call it softing.

But the term “softing” predates Sophie. It even predates Annabelle (she’s a big softer herself) though I’m fairly certain that before the kids I never uttered the word, only thought it to myself, as in “softing Rosie”.

If you have a blanket (and more of you do than will admit it, I know from the number of you who do admit it) then you know what softing is. My college friend Heather perfected it with a pillow to which she’s still particularly attached. (And she’s a successful LA lawyer with two kids and a cute husband, fully functioning.)

I don’t bring Rosie to work and Heather doesn’t bring Petty with her, either, though I believe Petty still travels. (Rosie’s just a crumb, as I’ve written before, so she stays in Tempe.)

And then there’s Rosy the Dog. For years, the springer spaniel and golden retriever in her made Rosy extremely rambunctious. It feels like she left puppyhood for senior citizendom overnight. She’ll still get excited for a treat, but mostly she’s on the floor, relaxing. Enjoying her later years, Annabelle and I decided last night. (As much as Jack will let her; he wants to play ALL THE TIME. Hard to blame him.)

All that is to say that Rosy is perfect for softing. Sophie found a good spot, sighed, and settled in for a good cuddle. Not a bad way to start the day.

You know, for years (14 next month, that’s her birthday) Ray and I have half-joked that we’re going to clone our springer/retriever mix, Rosy.

Rosy is the best dog in the entire world, and if you think I beat myself up over my Bad Mom status, you should hear the inner dialogue over what a crappy pet parent I make, particularly when time is crunched and the two-legged creatures are in line ahead of the four-legged variety.

But I love Rosy. Named for my sacred security blanket (Annabelle Rose is named after both dog and fabric), she is Some Dog, to paraphrase E.B. White.

And she won’t be around much longer, I fear. I only hope Jack the puppy doesn’t make the end of her life miserable. Rosy’s always been a go-along-get-along kind of girl, even when her former companion Elliot (a handsome yellow mutt who succumbed to melanoma — who knew? — years ago) humped her, all day every day, so I’m not too concerned.

With the whole cloning thing still years away, I fear our only option of preservation/continuation will be taxidermy, and I just can’t go there. I’ve started to wonder if perhaps the gods are pointing me that way, though, because damned if I don’t keep tripping over taxidermy.

Or maybe it’s just trendy.

This weekend I opened “Bust” magazine (no big boob jokes, please, I get enough from my children) to a spread about a woman in Minnesota who artistically grafts together, oh, a dead cat and a bird. No words to paint that picture, my friends, so check it out for yourself: www.customcreaturetaxidermy.com

And then there’s Flutter. Music (really great music, music so hip I certainly haven’t heard it) should play in the background, when you hear the name, because this is the freaking coolest store I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying something for a girl who has a horrendous sense of direction — unless it’s in a mall. (Just this past Saturday, when we were not even inside the mall but on a street nearby and I corrected Ray as to which way to turn, he said, “Oh yeah, we’re near the mall. Your sense of direction must be right.”)

Last week my dear friend Laurie drove all the way from Eugene to Portland to take me to this shop on Mississippi Avenue, a funkified street in North Portland.

“YOU WILL DIE,” she kept saying.

Practically. If you love repurposed, deconstructed vintage dresses heavy on the tulle, silk and trimmings, you’ll plotz. Every piece of jewelry (vintage or vintagey or vintagey vintage) was pitch perfect, every rug and pillow and chair begged for my living room. This woman even has carnival chalk, for crying out loud.

I did want to weep. I circled the place, oh, 2 dozen times, and wound up in a fascinating conversation with the owner about how to get my vintage celluloid cabachons to stick to metal.

I was in heaven. I didn’t even mind the taxidermy — the snarling (what is that? a cheetah? a bobcat?) mammal, the turtle, the lizard, the snake. Just typing these things makes my skin crawl, but there I was, stopping to admire rhinestones draped across a reptile.

It’s hard to be too upset about taxidermy when it’s got a velvet ribbon around its neck.

There will be no taxidermying of Rosy, even if that chick in Minnesota agreed to graft the equally aged Izzy (our tiny white cat) onto Rosy’s lap, where she’s been spending most of her time.

Too sad to even consider. Thank goodness for the distraction of retail therapy.