Starting with the bad news: #2 has officially cut teeth, and thus begins the agonizing teething stage of growing up. For those who might remember, teething was basically the worst thing in the world as far as I was concerned while raising #1, as it seemed to go on forever, and when it’s happening, there’s pretty much nothing we can do as parents to alleviate the pain they feel with their tiny little teef are boring through their gum lines.
Colic was pretty agonizing with #2, but that’s mercifully kind of subsided, leading to way fewer nuclear meltdowns, but seeing as how emotionally volatile she is, I dread the day when a teething spell reduces her to her shrill, shrieking cries of agony. I’m sure there will be more complain-y dad brogs in the future if and once those start to occur and it begins really cramping my style to become posts.
But overall, it’s so much bad news as much as it’s something that we knew was going to come into play eventually anyway. The real point of this post is more focused on the good news, which is that #2 has gotten cast for some advertising baby modeling, for a very national, very reputable, very known children’s brand. Meaning, someone is going to be paying real money to take pictures of my daughter, with the intent of use for seasonal marketing materials in the near future.
#1 was cast for a fitting in her first year, but she apparently had a thermonuclear meltdown during the fitting, and was very uncooperative for the camera, so it was no wonder she wasn’t brought back for the actual shoot. But #2 was a bit more chill, and we planned the day better to best optimize her routine behavior, and to no surprise, we received word that she was requested to come back for the actual shoot.
It’s a degree of validation that my kids are aesthetically pleasing enough to those outside of mythical wife and I myself as well as our respective families, because of course I think my girls are beautiful and the cutest babies ever. But it’s more meaningful to hear such from neutral parties, especially ones that are willing to pay money in order to have them model for campaigns.
Not to sound arrogant or anything, but I had a feeling that we stood a very good chance. Even more so after seeing what the competition was on the call sheet that came complete with photographs of all the other babies in contention. #2, aside from being a little cherub face, also has the beneficial distinction of being biracial, and having worked in marketing for big corporations, I know well the attractive appeal of biracial models who are visibly ambiguous, and cover more than one checkbox.
#2 looks Asian, but at the same time doesn’t have a lot of the more stereotypical features of full-blooded Asian people. Plus she doesn’t alienate racist white people, but at the same time still garners approval from minority demographics who can’t hate on a kid that doesn’t appear to be fully white.
As long as her behavior was kosher, I knew that #2 was going to make it through, and fortunately for us, she was behaving perfect, so it wasn’t really a surprise to me to hear that she had made it through.
So yeah, model baby. Technically means both my girls were good enough to be baby models, but #2 got through to the actual camera. So it’s now out of our hands at this point, and hoping that in a few months, we’ll start to see her cropping up in stores or their respective catalogues or social media channels, and it will be amazingly satisfying.
But most importantly, #2 is getting PAID. I’m not saying it’s nothing over a grand, but still a nice chunk of change to get money less the agency fee, for doing something that most parents like me probably would’ve done for free just for the satisfaction of seeing their kids in modeling. So much like the gif says, we goin’ to Sizzler!
