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.
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.
Cut! Cut! Cut! Why are you two here!?
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!
We’re all about balance, bed time, and “fang” shui these days. Here we see ridiculously large Hogan hanging with ridiculously small Abigail chaperoned by ridiculously small medium-sized Emily.
Tiny baby tires out massive dog.
Perhaps hidden to the casual viewer of this picture is the great chain of exercise. Hogan does absolutely nothing, but as you can see, he is utterly exhausted from watching Emily watching Abigail do little baby pushups during doctor-ordered tummy time.
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.
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.
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.
