Saturday, May 29, 2010

This week in numbers

(Warning- this is a post where I brag rather relentlessly about my child. Read at your own risk!)

2 - more photo shoots for Chasing Fireflies (this time for the holiday catalog)
18 - approximate hours spent driving to/from those photo shoots
7 - hours slept by Isa in the car on the first day
2 - hours slept by Isa in the car on the second day (guess which day was an easier drive)
3:30 - a.m., time we left the house on Wednesday to get to the shoot
3 - adorable outfits modeled by Isa for the upcoming holiday catalog
2 - dinners from McDonalds eaten this week
630 - dollars earned by those two photo shoots (woo-ha!)
20 - number of fabulously healthy and now super clean teeth that Isa has

This week Isa was called for another shoot with Chasing Fireflies. The shoot was down on Mount Hood in Oregon, a 4+ hour drive from Seattle. Wednesday's call was at 8:15 a.m. and I decided the easiest thing to do was simply drive down in the wee hours that morning. Otherwise it would mean driving down late Tuesday, paying for a hotel, and hoping Isa fell back asleep after getting her from the car to the hotel. It was just easier for me to get up at 2:30 and pack her into the car where she, as anticipated, went right back to sleep for the majority of the drive. When we were released Wednesday afternoon I assumed that meant we were entirely done. But Thursday morning the agent called and said they wanted her back. By that point it was too late to make it down on Thursday, so on Friday we made the trek one more time but with a more reasonable call time of 1:00 p.m..

The room adjacent to the work area was open for families and in between Isa's shots, she got to play with lots of other children. Everyone had toys and food, which kind of became communal property for keeping all the children happy. That's actually where most of our time was spent and not on set. On Wednesday, we were there for a total of 4 hours but less than an hour of that was actual "work." Same thing on Friday- 3 hours there and less than 1/2 an hour working. A pretty easy way to earn money!

All the shots were outside in the snow, which should be gorgeous, but conditions were pretty miserable with blowing icy snow. The crew did an amazing job holding up umbrellas and scrims to keep the snow away from the kids. I'm not sure that Isa even noticed she was outside in the cold as she was hamming it up, singing songs for the crew and saying silly things to get laughs. On Friday, her shot was with an older girl (in little sister/big sister holiday dresses) and Isa totally upstaged her! After shooting them together, we had the girls wrapped in blankets waiting to do individual shots. The photographer asked who wanted to go first. I was all prepared to do the Mama thing and suggest Madeleine go first so Isa could warm up a bit more. But, no- Isa threw the blanket off her shoulders and declared it was her turn. And then all through Madeleine's solo shots, Isa continued to sing and dance.
I cannot wait to see the final shots in the catalog! I'm trying very hard not to turn into a Stage Mom, but it's hard not to be excited and proud. At the photo shoots she did such an amazing job. I hadn't expected her to be quite so easy to work with and get a good picture from- she certainly isn't that way when I take out my camera. She stood where she was supposed to, smiled nicely, and was incredibly entertaining. When the photographer tells you that your child should have her own TV show, it's hard not to glow with Mama-pride. Who knows if/when she'll have another casting, but she did a really good job this time and also had lots of fun. (And, let's be honest, money is tight around here and $770 this month for her simply looking cute is pretty fabulous!)

In other news, on Thursday morning, Isa had her first dental appointment. Again, she was a total rock star- sat there in the chair, opened her mouth when asked, closed it when asked, let the hygienist do everything (cleaning, flossing, fluoride treatment) without any fuss. I was very impressed. The dentist said that we needed to lose the paci in the near future. I almost hugged him when he added "which I know is easy for me to say." I'm contemplating strategies and timing now but am very apprehensive about actually discontinuing it!

No photos from the modeling gigs, obviously, but here are some shots from the dentist:



ETA- Okay, I have tried about 12 times to fix the messed up paragraph formatting/spacing. For some reason what I see in the draft is not what Blogger publishes. *sigh*

7 comments:

Scott said...

My plan was to cut the binkies and not get new ones, so there is no suction, rendering them of no use. We've had people say they put lemon juice or vinegar on them so the wee one spits them out. I've read that someone used hot sauce (WTF????). Not sure what our plan is yet, either, but we working on teeth 13-16 at the moment. We don't plan to use the hot sauce method, although when trying to teach Zooey not to get on counters, I had no issue with that (didn't phase her btw). Let me know what ends up working!

Shauna said...

Nice work Isa... can I get your autograph?! when they want a cute one year old to ham it up in front of the camera, let me know! ha.

Jennifer said...

She is adorable. How did you learn to do little girl hair? Is what you do now time intensive?

Anonymous said...

super cool! will look forward to seeing Isa B in my Chasing Fireflies catalogs soon!

good luck with the paci. I have no advice - just good wishes. :-)

Chelsie said...

Hi, I came across your blog and have a question for you. My daughter has an audition with Chasing Fireflies tomorrow and I'm wondering just what the pay is? The reason is we are very far from Seattle and want to make sure if she gets booked that it will be more than the cost of gas to get there :) Thanks!

Orange Girl said...

Chelsie,

They pay $70/hour for the entire time you're on set. So, for the days down in OR, Isa was actually getting hair/makeup or shooting for less than an hour total but she got paid for 3 and 4 hours, respectively, since they rotated between several children being in front of the camera. We also got paid a set fee for travel on those days, although I don't know if that will apply for the upcoming shoot because it's in Seattle. Isa has a casting call on Friday for the next round! Good luck and maybe we'll see you on set. :)

Chelsie said...

Thanks so much for the info! Being that we're REALLY new at this, it's nice to know it will be worth it! We're really excited and a bit nervous, hoping she will be in a good mood for the audition today. :) Hoping her head shot is good enough etc. I'm sure you know. Good luck to you ladies too and I hope we do see you on set!
Chelsie