I haven’t written here in a while, so I’ll do a series of short updates. I just put up some new photos of Alana on Flickr, so check there for more (and remember to log in to see my private photos).

Commercial So Alana beat out 50 other babies and won the “honor” of diaper model baby. It took 2 days of filming and a one day photoshoot (in February). They were quite considerate about not tiring the baby out, and being really nice to her (Alana seemed quite happy the whole time), but in the end SS felt it was a bit much, and doesn’t think she wants to do it again. (I pointed out that it also takes up quite a bit of Alan’s caretakers’ time… In this case, SS, her mom, and the nanny all went for most of the three days!)

The “Unicharm” diaper commercial is coming out in May, and will be in TV and online. The photos will also be in magazines. We’ll get a DVD of all that stuff.

Defending my Daughter’s Honor So SS has been taking Alana swimming at that baby swimming place near our home. Recently the place put up a promotional poster featuring various happy babies that had been swimming there. But they put up Alana’s picture too, without asking us, and it was the only one featuring full frontal nudity. Not cool!

So I went over there and kinda chewed them out a little. They apologized and agreed to “remove” Alana from the poster.

The thing that pissed me off was the manager’s response “but we got the permission of all the other baby’s parents.” (How is that supposed to make me feel better??)

In general, people in China is not as sensitive to privacy issues as parents are in the States, so it looks like this is an issue I’ll have to stay on top of in the future.

Noises Alana’s making more and more noises… She’s gone beyond little babbling noises and started doing rather long, loud sustained noises. They’re not really cries or squeals. For now they’re still pretty cute and harmless. Hopefully she doesn’t start horrific squealing soon.

New Office Our company is growing, and when we add new full-time employees and interns this summer we won’t have room for everyone in our current office. So it’s almost time to move again already.

Originally we were thinking of moving up to the 3rd or 4th floor of our current office building, but when we calculated the (somewhat extensive) renovation costs that would be needed, we realized it wasn’t such a bargain. The place we ended up choosing is called Central Pod (I know, more “pod”…), and is in a much better location for all our employees (no longer a short walk away for me, but still pretty close).

The office itself isn’t big, but the building is beautiful, eco-friendly, and full of natural light, and the meeting rooms and kitchen are shared, so we don’t need to build those ourselves. In fact, there are no renovations required at all… just furniture. So we’ll be busy with that this April. First day in the new office is May 1st.