Abigail
Abby Simpsonized!
With her rapier-sharp wit, babylicious looks, and undeniable fashion sense, it was only a matter of time before Abigail was tapped out to appear on an upcoming episode of the long-running Simpsons.
Don’t miss her this coming Sunday when she guest stars with that stupid punk baby (sorry! We forgot his name!) that got the e-Trade high-chair account! We can’t give much more of the script away, but we can say that she gets to call him a “spitupapotamus” to his face!
Stop listening to Ragnar Olegård!
The pro-baby bjorn lobby is strong. It’s tough to go too far on a sunny day without seeing some yuppie couple slinging around a little person in one of those fake marsupial pouches. The problem is, however, that if you’re less than 6 months old, your view from the baby bjorn is as bad as any sled husky rearward of the lead dog. All you see is a non-stop commercial for Adirondack, North Face, or some other over-priced fleece product.
So Ragnar writes:
“Ever since the 1970s, study after study has shown the importance of early eye-to-eye contact, of close bodily contact between parents and their new-born babies or infants. Blah blah blah… The baby bjorn facilitates this like no other product.” – Ragnar Olegård
Maybe so! Maybe the bjorn is the best thing since disposable diapers, but this crazy bjorn-pimping Swede is costing us little people a wealth of visual stimulation.
Over there I’m with my Mom, my Dad, and my 2nd cousin and they’re enjoying the view from Lighthouse Beach. What am I staring at? You guessed it: a Champion jacket logo. Thanks for the ride, Captain Kangaroo, but I might as well have stayed at home sucking on a bottle, since craning my neck just brings the zipper into view.
And I’m not really one to complain for no reason! It’s not like I’m picking a fight here, but look at some of the other things I’ve missed due to this stupid baby-carrying contraption!
Here I am in Fenway park the last time Manny Ramirez showed up to play left field. Great seats, jackass! Mortgage my college fund to get them? I don’t suppose the breastaurant is open?
It’s bad enough to miss the entire game, but how would you also like to be crushed into a hodge podge of peanut shells, mustard, cheap beer, and whatever else this slob pours down the front of him during a four and a half hour game?
Here we are on a family trip to Europe. Same freaking deal! Paris in Spring is really no different than Peabody in Spring if you tour the continent in an f’n bjorn.
So you might want to think about using the stroller once in a while. Sure, it’s a little less convenient and you have to hose down the tires when one of you absent-mindedly runs it through the fresh dog poo on the sidewalk. But isn’t that better than every exciting event and cultural scene appearing behind your baby’s back?
And it’s Abigail by the fur of a hood!
If you tuned in early for the Baby Crawl by the Bay races, you witnessed Abigail’s complete dominance of the 5 meter freestyle belly, a race she won by two lengths.
Max proved himself a gamer, however, with a great showing in the 5 meter back crawl — pictured above and no doubt the cover of SI and Baby Racing magazines for March. In this photo finish, you can see that only a late burst by Abigail pushed her across the line for the win. Is the baby racing field finally leveling?
Gracious in defeat, when interviewed after the race, Max commented, “listen… Abby is the baby we’re all trying to beat out here and it’s an honor just to be here today. She’s been racing since before I was even born, and she made this sport what it is today.”
When asked about the apparent size advantage Max has over her, despite his younger age, Abigail refused to point fingers but added, “I’ve always said that our sport needs to test for performance-enhancing drugs. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but you’ve got to wonder about the size of that dude’s hands. I don’t know. It just seems odd. Look at my hand and then look at his. I’m just saying. I like Max. He’s a good kid and he’s gonna help push this sport to a new audience one day. He might be clean… but in any case someone should really check his diaper.”
Symbiosis
Ok, my little friend, here’s how this works. You sit there and scratch my back, and while you’re scratching my back, I’ll clean the food off your face. This is symbiosis! This is teamwork!
Think of the opportunities when you are trapped in your high chair faced with the task of eating far too many string beans or peas or sweet potatoes, while I’m on the floor barely sated by the pittance these people give me in the way of nutrition. All you’ll have to do is push your food over the edge and my good friend gravity will take it from there.
It’ll be sweet! You’ll love it! We’ll practice this more later when you’re off formula. Formula gives me gas.
Abby Answers Fanmail #1
“So, baby girl, you lookin’ chunky! What you weigh now?” — Yolanda LaTeesha
No you did not just ask me about my weight! This is the last time I’m going to answer this question, but for the record I’m 7pounds 10 ounces… 7 pounds 14 ounces when the tall ones are a little slow with my diaper change.
“Will your training combines ever be open to the public? We don’t have enough data to properly handicap your upcoming 5 meter crawl against Max ‘hand man’ Teter.” — Jim Kruger of Sports Book Unlimited
1. My practices will never be open again after the leaked photos that turned up in Little People Big Carpet.
2. All you need to know to handicap this exhibition is that Max “the snail trail” Teter has the same chance Michigan’s football team has of beating anyone better than Cape Cod Community College. I am Abigail “the antelope” Moore! I’m the Big Brown of baby racing; Max is the Shrek Donkey of baby racing. I don’t care if this race has been moved inside to a neutral carpeted site in Marblehead; I’m just as fast on an artificial track. If the “Belly Drag by the Bay” is 5 meters long, I will smoke that chump by at LEAST 4 meters. You can print that, sucker!
“You hit the bottle harder than Jack Kerouac did between novels. Have you ever considered that finding every one of your meals in a bottle might be the harbinger of a future drinking problem? I think you might need help, so call me when you want to get clean.” — Marc F. Kern, M.D.
Nice try, you quack! Next you’ll be telling me that too much binky use leads to heavier things… like thumbs. I’ll give up the bottle, Marc, when you give up your addictions to skinny models, infomercials, Botox, and Rogaine. And stop sending me chain emails!
“Hey, Abby, how’s the potty training coming?” — Dr. Spock Jr.
Bad news, Doctor. Magic Eight Ball diaper says, “crappy forecast.”
Thanks for all the mail, peeps! I’ll answer more as it comes in!
Crib Training
As the black puffy pouches under Emily’s eyes will tell you, Abigail does not regularly sleep (or allow her parents to sleep!) very well between the hours of 11:00PM and 5:00AM.
We’ve tried a few strategies to encourage Abby to sleep at night. During the daylight hours, we make her do infant calisthenics, we regularly poke her with a sharp stick to keep her awake, and we coat her clothing with peanut butter to ensure that Hogan will constantly lick her if she tries to sneak some Z’s while we are distracted.
Unfortunately, none of these tactics has paid dividends, so we have had to take our game up a notch. We have begun “crib training” Abigail. Crib training is all about encouraging “wise choices” through classical conditioning.
As you can see from the picture of Abigail’s crib, we have a subdued, happy mobile on the “GOOD” side and a bizarre, angry mobile on the “EVIL” side. We begin the night by placing Abby with her head towards the sweet dream-enhancing critters of the “GOOD” mobile, but if Abigail refuses to sleep quietly, we turn her around to face the “EVIL” mobile. Remember… we are parents, not friends!
The “GOOD” mobile offers a pleasant parade of friendly critters who frolic counterclockwise to a lullaby softly plinked out by a wind-up powered music box. It’s a little slice of baby heaven!
The “EVIL” mobile features a large blue poison frog, a smiling (but stinging!) hornet, a miniature “monkey shines” haunted chimpanzee, a dangling poison sumac leaf, and a mechanized set of pincer leaves that close savagely like a half-starved Venus fly-trap at irregular, shocking intervals. This violent action is set to an instrumental soundtrack titled “Biting Insects of the Uncomfortably Humid Amazon.”
Eventually we may be able to remove the training aids, but when and if this happens is entirely up to Abby. We only hope we won’t be forced to use the evil clown mobile. The evil clown mobile offers excellent short-term silence, but its long-term psychological effects remain controversial.
Photo shoot fight…
Until very recently we’ve only had one model for all of our photo shoots, and his name is Hogan. Now that Abigail has arrived, Hogan has been grudgingly gracious when it comes to sharing camera time, but we were bound to have an incident eventually.
On Saturday, we took Hogan down to the little league field for a series of nude photos that we planned to submit to RRCUS for next year’s “Wild Ridges Rising!” Ridgeback calendar. He wasn’t thrilled about wearing only a thin nylon collar in the frigid temperatures and blowing snow of glacial Massachusetts, but after a bit of coaxing and leash tugging, he regained his professionalism and posed for the picture seen here.
He was quite pleased with the shot and figured the calendar shoot was a wrap, but since we were already on location we decided to take a few more shots.
Things turned suddenly ugly when Emily and Abigail casually strolled into a shot where Hogan was demonstrating his “action sit” between second and third base. You can see here that he is less than amused that Emily and Abigail have barged into a photo he felt had a legit chance to become the backdrop of either February or March of the RRCUS calendar.
Whether it was the early stages of frostbite on his tail or the final straw of once again sharing the stage with rival talent, Hogan lost his mind at this point, barked some unrepeatable comments at the cameraman, and then did what one should really refrain from doing to the person who feeds, houses, and walks you. It was not a proud moment for anyone involved.
We will not be submitting the resulting violent picture to RRCUS, although Hogan did argue later that it shows off his better side. We’re also now in the market for a good used camera!
Abigail visits the NICU… shows off weight gain!
As many of you probably know by now, Abigail escaped the womb early in order to take full advantage of the excellent NICU spa treatment offered at Salem Hospital. Over the course of her nine day resort vacation, Abigail lounged under blue ray tanning lights, enjoyed regular sea salt sponge baths, and wiled her minutes and hours in fresh-from-the-oven warm wraps. She enjoyed her stay immensely and she has constantly whined to return; here is her first visit.
Unlike the spartan lifestyle faced by your average rehab-bound celebrity, NICU staff kept bottles ever on hand for whenever Abigail felt like sucking back a warm one, and every finished bottle was succeeded by several rousing cheers and a Swedish back massage continued until leche-addled Abigail attained both burp and unconsciousness.
As you can see here, Lisa can barely hold the now massive Abigail. Abigail’s milk-based Fatkins diet has led to exponential weight gain, so Lisa has wisely adopted the two-handed short yardage football carry to accommodate Abigail’s new found bulk.
Baby Bauble Deconstruction #1
Many new parents try to keep the floor and their new infant separated by towels, blankets, or reasonably clean newspaper. Having infants on the floor is, ironically enough, comforting to new parents, since one of the recurring nightmares new parents face is the vision of their child falling from any of the myriad of high altitude perches at which children spend their early days (cribs, hopelessly under-reinforced bouncy chairs, countertops, local bars, black jack tables, human arms, etc.). Cultivating activities that originate and take place on the floor eliminates the worry that a child will arrive at the ground from height with speed, but as anyone who has had an untimely visit from the Department of Social Services will attest, there should really be an expanse of colorful, educational fabric between your child and whatever toxins and unholy essences call your floor home.
We use the cushy, pastel zoological mat pictured here, and at first glance it may appear to be entirely adequate for infant floor exercises. Once you’ve stared at it for a few unbroken hours (or at least the portions of the mat not covered by your motionless child when she refuses to do even one more head up or roll over), you may notice that the artist’s grasp of the animal kingdom is at best vaguely creationist, and at worst frankly dangerous to young, developing minds. It’s clear that whoever manufactured and distributed this “play and learn” mat never spent any time in the African bush and probably never consulted so much as a zoo, a library, or an animal cracker box.
A short list of animal kingdom errors should convince you to choose your mats with better discretion than our early effort documented here.
Bath Time!
People are always asking me, “Abigail, how do you keep yourself looking so suave and dapper all the time even though you spend the bulk of your day pooping and peeing in your diaper, spitting up all over your jammies, and rolling around on the floor?”
It’s really pretty simple as you can see from the shots above! If you have the means, I highly recommend that you get yourself one or two of these giant servants. I couldn’t imagine my day without staff… I just couldn’t imagine!
Tummy Time action photos!
We have a Canon PowerShot SD750 Digital ELPH and the experience of taking over 35 million pictures of our Rhodesian Ridgeback in various stages of sleep, so though we would never go so far as to suggest that you “not try this at home,” we’re pretty sure that your efforts wouldn’t produce the same bar-raising photographi(que) awesomeness… at least not at first. In the following sequence of shots, you can clearly make out the furious side to side and threatening down to up movements exhibited by the rather-be-sleeping wee one during parent-mandated exercise session #2.
As hummingbirds hover at a flower or feeder, their wings can beat up to 80 times per second, which produces their signature hum, and you must take a similar approach with you when filming Abigail. To the naked eye—and often to your naked or poorly dressed camera—the wings (or the arms! or the legs!) are just a nauseating blur. Often the first question I’m asked by the ubiquitous cult of the amateur is what shutter speed I use to tame this ludicrously fast action sequence. Ha! Shutter speed schmutter speed… everyone in the know understands it’s all about the high speed flash! Come on now!
Whether you’re capturing the in flight humming bird wing or the inclined domestic Abisaurus doing head ups during tummy time, it takes immense photographic skill and timing to isolate the beasts’ fast-twitch muscle movements enough for the human eye to perceive, let alone to enjoy. There are no shortcuts! But never fret, kind reader, because here at Moorezilla.com we’ve done all the heavy lifting for you!
Welcome to midnight!
Sleep? Sleep, friends, is for when it’s light outside! Those wide open, unblinking shark eyes assure you that when it’s dark outside it’s wakey wakey scream and shaky!
What does approximately five and a half pounds of milk-drunk hyperactive Mooreling look like at the first minute of the spanking new day? Umm… she looks like this —–>
Total Abby minutes awake from 9:00am to 11:59pm = 6. Total Abby minutes awake from 12:01am to 8:59am = 527.2! And it’s another new Abigail night time record! Only brief, predictable dairy comas cut into the night time seconds available for parental torture.
I sing a song of dirty diapers
I cornered, captured, and consumed my first delicious diaper today. Emily, foolish wench, was so jealous that she hysterically screamed obscenities and rudely attempted to snatch away my fairly found diaper. Her regrettable actions forced me to eat it too fast and I have made a mental note to bite her later.
Although my contraband diaper was quite delicious, I now find myself unable to move from my leather lounger for any length of time without feeling sharp pains in my stomach; I think they may be hunger pangs… hunger pangs for more diapers. No matter… I will sleep this diaper off, dream of dirty diapers not yet made, and seek out new dirty diapers tomorrow.
And I will bite foolish Emily when I feel better, as I think I may have mentioned, for trying to take my dirty diaper away. Or… or… maybe I will just lick her. I am undecided. I will sleep and ponder this quandary.
That is all for now.
Childcare is ridiculously easy…
As Emily and Abigail deftly demonstrate in this photo, the bulk of childcare consists of precious little more than lounging around on the couch and half-conscious cuddling. Our Abigail is pretty much self-sufficient at this point, requiring from her adult handlers only an occasional warm meal, dry wardrobe change, or gentle poke with a sharp stick to test developing reflexes.
Actually, none of that is true. Abigail is instead a miniature, deep-lunged vampire, sleeping quietly all day only to wake screaming at darkening dusk to suck in fifteen minute increments the life out of her parents. You may see a child sleeping comfortably, a suburban Rockwell moment, but this is the nap that powers the monster’s night-long assault on everyone’s sleep in the household save the ridgeback. Hogan, charmed canine, still rises but in the late morning and for no one not named breakfast.
Abigail now larger than typical garden gnome!
Despite what some have suggested, Abigail Jane now towers over Gnarles Gnuberry, our fearless if admittedly rusting garden gnome, and we expect her to double his size in a few short months. Hopefully this photographic evidence will dispel such miniature rumors once and for all.
Printing Abigail Photos the easy way!
People say to us all the time, “hey… that Abigail is quite possibly the most photogenic child ever produced. How do we get a nicely printed picture of Abigail to replace the stock photo that came with the nifty frame we just purchased from Target?”
Well, folks, it’s really easy. If you head on over to the Moorezilla Gallery, and click on the picture you fancy, and then (this is important!) click on the link for “full size” that appears to the upper right of the photo, you’ll have the largest file size availabe for that particular photo. You want the largest size photo regardless of what size photo you want to print. Once you have the largest size, click on the link on the left that says “Print on Shutterfly.com” and you’re on your way to having a frameable picture of your choice and size mailed to your house.
There are many other ways to get your own prints, including downloading the “Full Size” file of the picture you want to your hard-drive and uploading it to a site (like the CVS photo site) that allows you to upload and order prints. Also, if you have a photo printer and want to print your own pictures, I highly suggest downloading and using a free tool like Google’s Picasa, that will allow you to automatically scale files to print out at whatever size you would like.
Abigail comes home!
On November 24 at about 6:00PM, Abigail Jane went home.
First Abby Pics!
These are also in the Moorezilla Gallery, but some people were having trouble finding the gallery, so here they are here… as they say.
Abigail’s First Post
My name is Abigail Jane and I was born at 1:32PM on Saturday, November 15 at Salem Hospital! I was 18 and 3/4 inches long and weighed 4 pounds 12 ounces, and I didn’t want to miss any of my first New England winter.
I also couldn’t stand the fact that some guy named Hogan was monopolizing this blog, so I’m here to put a stop to that immediately. Get ready for the Baby Abigail channel; the only Hogan you’ll be seeing is if he happens to be in the picture with me.
That’s my mother, Emily, holding me. She did a pretty good job, but my father was an outstanding coach.
