My Little Baby Fashionista

Mummy confession: I’ve become one of those Mums.

What Mums, you ask? The Mums who enter their kids in Baby Contests. And yes, messages everyone to vote for her. Oops.

I guess like every mother, I think my baby is really cute. So when I walked past a poster in United Square asking: “Does your baby possess the Cute-Factor?”, I couldn’t resist. Besides, the prize included the opportunity to be featured in Today’s Parents magazine. If you know me, you’ll know that is something I get really excited about. “The chance to be famous!” my husband would tease. I thought it was worth a shot.

I submitted this photo of Naomi and was quite happy that she was shortlisted. That is, until I realised that they pretty much shortlisted everyone who submitted a photo! That’s how it seemed at least. And worse, 30% of the judging criteria was based on Facebook voting. I dislike voting because I think a baby contest should be judged and not reduced to a popularity contest. Also, this meant that in order to ensure that Naomi stood a chance, I would have to ask friends to vote for her — and in the process let everyone know that I have become part of the baby-contest-joining crowd. Argh.

I decided to do a shout-out just once, to keep her in the running, and was very grateful for the support I received from friends and family. Thanks a bunch guys! You know who you are. I didn’t want to be aggressive about it, but I thought she’d better have some votes. The most popular babies had over 500 votes! Wow.

We then had to take her down to the mall to have some shots taken by the official photographer at the event on a Saturday morning. It wasn’t a good week though. Naomi had developed diarrhea during the course of the week and by Saturday I was starting to get worried. Thankfully, other than the constant pooping, she remained in good spirits. We had an early timeslot which was kind of close to her nap time, but Naomi, she just loves being out. She was also fascinated by all the folks staring at her. My kids are totally not camera shy, thanks to Papa always pointing one in their face, so after warming up, the photographer got some good shots, including one which we could choose to print out and bring home to keep.

Late that night, I got an SMS from the organisers saying that she had been selected for the finals. I was thrilled. And felt vindicated. There, I knew my baby was cute! Haha.

Considering that her category was the most competitive, with over 100 entries, I thought it was pretty decent that she made it to the top 20. Especially since she wasn’t part of the top 20 when it came to votes.

Alas, I realised only from that SMS that the final would be at 12pm on Sunday. Sunday is generally tricky enough since we have church. But that particular Sunday, DD was teaching Sunday School after service, and my helper was scheduled to be off. It was just a logistical challenge to get to the event by 12pm. Plus Naomi was still having diarrhea and I didn’t know if it would be a good idea to tax her out with the event, which was scheduled to run from 12pm to 3pm.

In the end, I made the painful decision to withdraw her. I messaged the organiser back that night, thinking that they could get a replacement finalist, but later I realised they just named 19 finalists in her category instead.

So that was that for Naomi’s first baby contest. To this day, I’m still not sure who won! I checked, but they didn’t post the results on their Facebook page.

Of course now that I’ve done it, I’m thinking: Should I enter her in more contests? Oh dear, it is a slippery slope indeed!