Shannon Phillips

So we just got a call from the modeling agency saying they would like to offer Robin representation. He’s nine months old and he has an agent! Hilarity!

The way this works, apparently, is with very little notice. We’ll get a phone call for a booking the next day. So I have no idea when his first job might be, but I will be sure to give you all the details when it happens.

I’m pleased, of course, that the cuteness of my baby has been independently verified by a professional agency. But I didn’t really need the validation: I get plenty of it everywhere I go. Last Friday the boy and I were in a restaurant and a man came up to us to say “Excuse me, I just have to tell you—usually I don’t even like babies but that one—that one is really cute.” At which point the lady behind the counter chimed in: “That’s because most babies aren’t like that one! Most babies cry and scream!”

I did not tell her that Robin does those things too, because right at that moment he was giving his best starry-eyes-and-six-toothed-smile to the busboy, who had completely given up on bussing anybody’s table in favor of making silly faces at Robin and tickling his toes. So I held court over my little corner of the restaurant, feeling basically like the mother of the Dauphin.

Right now the Dauphin is crawling around under the table making little shrieking sounds, so I think it may be time to check His Highness’s stinky butt. After all good skin care is essential for a working model!

The group casting call was packed with children and parents—SOME people chose to ignore the advisory that only one parent per child was invited. But everybody was really nice. I sat next to a mom from Berkeley with a boy only a few months older than Robin, who was, like me, doing the whole thing on a complete whim. Robin’s new favorite thing in the whole world is other children, so he was in heaven. He smiled at everybody while we waited, played in his own limited way with any other small person who came near (mostly by reaching for them and, if allowed, patting them gently), and grinned like a loon as soon as a camera was pointed in his direction. I think he charmed the socks off the talent scout. She interacted with him a little; asked me some questions about his development (whether he scootches, crawls, sits, etc.: the answers are respectively yes, no, and yes); snapped a couple pictures; then told me he was very cute and friendly and that we’d hear back by Friday.

I have no big expectations, but we had fun today, and I think Robin did as well as could be asked.

Robin sat up twice today, just like it ain’t no thang, looked around for a few seconds, and then bellied down to the ground again for some serious motoring. I think he’s been able to sit up for at least a few weeks, but I can’t be entirely sure—because he never holds any one position for long. Sitting really doesn’t interest him. Rolling, or rocking, or scootching, or grabbing: these things interest him. As soon as he’s made his way to one place he’s looking for where he can get to from there.

We had a really nice Mother’s Day weekend. We celebrated on Saturday since Sam works Sundays: Robin had picked out (presumably with plenty of help from his daddy) a really cute card and book, and we had brunch at the Cafe Majestic, which many of you will remember from our rehearsal dinner. I had french toast with strawberries and crème fraîche. It was delicious!

Yesterday I gave Robin some apple juice in a sippy cup. He took to it immediately, and within a few seconds was holding and maneuvering the cup by himself. “He’s so smart!” I marveled to Sam. “He’s like—octopus-level smart!”

“He’s a hominid,” Sam reminded me. “He’s probably smarter than an octopus.” Which kind of blew my mind. I guess Robin doesn’t have much opportunity to demonstrate his intelligence, since he can usually get whatever he wants just by being cute. But the little wheels are turning pretty quick in there.

So, after having I-don’t-know-how-many people come up to me off the street and say “Is that baby a model? He should be in catalogs!” I actually started to look into the weird world of baby modeling. As far as I can tell it’s not the sort of thing that would pay for a college education: it seems more common for babies to earn like fifty dollars a day, so it’s something done mostly for fun and the pride of seeing your kid’s face in a magazine.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I actually sent off some snapshots to a talent agency, and guess what? When I got home today there was a message asking me to bring Robin in for a casting call on the 17th. Now’s my chance to metamorphose into a horrifying stage mom!

I know some people like to wait until they actually see their baby to pick a name, in order to be sure of choosing a name that suits the child. But if I had done that, Robin’s official name on his birth certificate would probably be “Mister CutieToes.”

We’re back from Arkansas now—sadly both Sam and I were dumb and forgot our cameras, so we don’t have any photos. But it was really special to see how delighted the baby was by his extended family. He loved his Pops and Mo and all his uncles and his aunt, but cottoned especially to Uncle Taylor. I loved seeing him so happy. Of course now that he’s gotten to spend a few days rolling around on the floor with four or five adoring adults all constantly competing to amuse him, it’s a little hard for him to adjust to being home with just Sam and me. He’s a social little critter and he clearly prefers being part of a big family. I think he’ll be pretty happy when he gets a sister or a brother.

Oh hey, it’s been a while since I’ve updated. We spent most of last week traveling to Nevada to visit Robin’s great-grandma Elsie and The Anti-Sara. At the same time Sam’s parents were making their own way across California, visiting with various family members, so when we got back to San Francisco they were here to see us!

Robin handled the trip really well. He did get thoroughly sick of his car seat by the end of things, but he just loves being made a fuss of by rooms full of people. He also took really well to the Phillips family dogs, and they were very patient with him.

We ate in a lot of restaurants while we were traveling, and discovered that Robin is willing to be perfectly quiet for the whole meal so long as he gets to eat bits off our plates. As a result, he got to sample a wide range of solid foods, including scrambled eggs, rice, avocado, oranges (he looooves oranges), gravy, caramelized onions, tomatoes (both raw and processed into spaghetti sauce), soft bread, and other things I am forgetting now. He is a big fan. Especially of oranges.

Now we get a couple of weeks to unwind at home before taking another trip, this time by plane, to Fayetteville. There’s a whole bevy of uncles and an aunt as well that Robin has yet to meet, and I think he will be delighted. Now that Sam’s back at work and it’s just me and Robin during the day, he seems to be looking around, a bit fussy, as if to say: Where are all those nice people who loved me so much? Where did they go? I want them back!

Robin has started giving us kisses! Well, sort of. He kind of lunges toward us with his mouth wide open, leaving a big smear of baby drool where he manages to connect. It’s possible that he’s actually trying to eat us.

I turned on the TV while I was nursing Robin, and they were showing live pictures of my street taken from a news helicopter! Turned out the torch runners had been diverted to a route literally two blocks from my apartment. So I thought, what the hey, let’s go see some history.

And we did! Robin naturally didn’t know what all the excitement was about but he smiled at everybody, and I took some pictures. There was hardly anybody else there. These runners passed about five feet from where I was standing on the sidewalk. But as far as I could tell the torch wasn’t actually burning—I think the flame had already been handed off. Oh well.

I’m proud of Gav for being sneaky and pulling this thing off. China’s human rights record is atrocious and Sam and I have been known to donate money to pro-Tibet causes, but assaulting Olympic torchbearers is just wrong. I’m glad San Francisco managed to host the torch successfully, and I’m glad I was lucky enough to (kind of) see it.

Two on the bottom front, four on top.

Robin and I both have a cold right now—nothing major, we’re both just a little stuffed-up and under the weather. When he’s home Sam is doing a great job of fetching me kleenex and tea, with the understanding that I will do the same for him when he inevitably catches this bug.