Su-Su-SupaStar

Calling All Bay Customers... Emma Abray is in da' house!

The little fashion plate got her first casting call Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning, 9:00 am sharp, we found ourselves in an ultra-hip photo studio in the middle of swarmy Parkdale shooting for a Bay (that's Hudson's Bay) catalogue! Almost 8 months in, and Emma is finally earning her keep. Cute only gets you so far in this world. (Granted, cute has been pretty good for me..)

But on with my story of little Em's first modelling assignment. We arrive at the studio and are pretty much ignored for the first 10-15 minutes (but when nobody is paying attention to you and you're just standing around like a jackass, time passes very s-l-o-w-l-y). Finally, someone tells me I can go into the kitchen & grab a coffee & wait till they're ready for us. Why it took so long for someone to tell me they have CHAIRS is beyond me. But now that I think of it, why didn't I ask? I'm so Canadian, so polite, but thinking very mean thoughts. We made our way into the kitchen and met the second mother. Here I'll interject for a sec with the scoop on how the modelling world works for babies - every call requires two kids, just in case one is being an uncooperative barfy dink. Fortunately (this time) that was not Emma. And now back to my story. So as I was saying, here I met mother #2. (Martine will get a kick out of this...) She immediately thinks she knows me from somewhere. I'm sure this isn't the case - I get that alot, just have one of 'those' faces, I suppose. We get to talking and turns out she grew up at Don Mills & Steeles! (For those of you who don't know, that's about 3 minutes from where I grew up - walking distance.) She's my age, born in '71. Went to Jackson. Nope, don't know her from Jackson. (Probaby cuz I didn't go there, but nonetheless knew alot of people who did. Guess that's what happens when you're popular - hee hee.) She went to Highland. Strike two. OH MY GOD... she went to CLIFFWOOD! We were in the same classes for most of our elementary school lives!!! Strangely, I can't remember her, but she was (and still is) great friends with SANDY SOKOL! Are you plotzing?

Obviously that's not where she knows me from, it's somewhere more recent, she never did figure it out. Oh - Martine - Julie Klein. Mean anything to you?

Okay, back to Emma..

Fortunately our sitting there by ourselves paid off - when it came time to take the shots, they chose to take the baby that arrived first. That was us! Yippee!! Okay, Emma, you're on. Work your magic! I'm handed this little pink outfit, very Elfen - heavy body suit, jacket, leggings, and hat. Under oods of lights. Poor kid must have been boiling. I was boiling. Might have been nerves, this was a career making event, after all.

Emma sat up nice, had her picture taken several dozen times, and that was that. Call the next kid in! Emma took off the outfit (fine, I took it off for her), & very reluctantly handed it over to the other kid. And now for the drama, drama that can only happen in the world of infant modelling... The other kid couldn't sit by herself. Get her undressed! Didn't even bother shooting her! Looks like Emma's in!