Giana has been doing a bit of baby modeling lately. Her adorable face – combined with her Hispanic descent on the white Minnesota landscape AND the fact that her proud papa will show her picture to anyone who looks – has lead to several  jobs for Target.

Her first job was when she was 12 weeks old. It was innocent enough. She just had to lay there with her up&up diaper on and smile. No problem. Well now, she’s almost six months old. At some point during most weeks, we load up the car and search out a tiny studio for a go-see or a photo shoot.

I thought we were getting the hang of this baby modeling thing, but today was a tough one.

As soon as Giana woke up, we loaded her into the car and rushed to the fancy industrial space-turned-trendy studio. And we waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently, the model who would be posing as the mommy in the shoot was having some hair difficulties. Her absolutely gorgeous hair wasn’t quite gorgeous enough for this photograph, apparently.

And after two hours, my previously smiley (and now squirmy) baby was close to nap time when she was finally called to the makeup chair. (Makeup for babies mainly involves some hair combing and lotion, sometimes a spot of blush on the apples of their cheeks.) The lady started taming her stray hairs when she found “the lucky curl.”

“The lucky curl” is was a unique spot on Giana’s head. It was a group of ten-ish hairs behind her left ear that were about two inches longer than all the rest of the hair on her head. When the makeup lady found the lucky curl (also sometimes called the Hasidic curl by her father and I), the lady asked what I knew she would ask. I took a deep breath, said yes,

and she cut it off.

Now, if this would have led to a successful photo shoot where Giana looked great and her photographs would be used in the baby catalog, I *think* I would have been fine with this first haircut. However, since we were now walking on to the set about a half hour past nap time, I knew it was all for nothing. As expected, Giana squirmed, allowed herself to be distracted for a minute or two, then broke down – all she wanted to do was sleep.

I think we are done with baby modeling. It was fun while it lasted, but I miss her curl already.