Princess Tickle Wave

Tuesday was one of the longest, most adrenaline filled days I have experienced in a while. I had a blast doing it but don't think I would be able to hack it everyday. The long hours, unpredictability, and the potential of sudden chaos could wear on a person. I will bring Wyatt on more auditions but I would want to space out his days of shooting.

The shoot was in a residential area in suburban NJ. Upon finding the street, we were met with several large white trucks lining the road, two policemen, two RV campers, lights, director chairs, and people running in every direction. "Well, that's not intimidating" were Rebeccas comforting words of wisdom that motivated me to keep on driving. We circled the block a few times, I took a few deep breaths, and proceeded to join the pandemonium.

I believe there is some saying about never working with animals and children. This commercial contained both. The premise of our vignette was mom, daughter, and infant son going for a walk. They reach home and their family cat is in the picture window, waving at them. Little girl waves back. Mom smiles at the overwhelming love for her family pet. Cut to the kitchen. Little girl and cat sit on stools waiting to be fed by mom who clearly loves to shop at Walmart because of their amazing prices on her favorite premium pet food.

Once they finally needed me on set the director took one look at me with all of my piercings and said "Get rid of all of those. We want a mother not a gypsy." The little girl, who was playing my daughter, told her mother to leave saying "Mom, I need to work now." Meanwhile, the entire scene was taking forever because they were trying to get the 4 year old to look around the bag of cat food while trying to keep a cat on a stool and looking at the bag. Talk about tall order. The cat wanted nothing to do with anything. The poor animal wranglers were sweating more then any of the Olympians. The 4 year old was more interested in licking peanut butter out of the jar while no one was looking or grabbing the cat when the wranglers weren't looking. Every time she got the peanut butter it would get all over her face and then hair and makeup would have to be called in. All I had to do was endure, move the cat bag in and out of the shot, and do my best to follow orders which sounded a lot like this "Bowl, bag. More naturally, show the product. Bowl. Bowl. I said natural. Bowl. Reset. Bowl. We can't see the label. NATURAL!!"

Several people came up to us and told us that Wyatt was the most well behaved person on set. He was amazing and obviously made for this business. He was chilling the entire time with his favorite Aunt B and Lizzy. The scene that he was in he had to sit in a stroller, looking adorable, while the little girl waved at the cat. The girl was way past her nap time by the time we got to that scene and she was not waving. Her mother was trying to bribe her with barbies but nothing was working. Most of the time she was throwing her hands around rather than waving. Her mom described the wave that she should do as the Princess Tickle Wave. I guess that means you have to wave like a Princess being tickled or pretend your tickling a Princess while waving. I am not really sure. As all of this craziness is going on with people yelling "Do the Princess Tickled Wave!" I happened to look down and Wyatt is waving. Kid you not, the child is a genius. Everyone on set was impressed. Boys got skill.

Most of the morning had a hurry up and wait quality but classic Kate making the most out of every moment I worked on honing my public nursing skills. I was in full costume and needed on set any moment but Wyatt had other plans. We had set up a blanket, picnic style, on the side of the road to be near everything but far enough away to keep the noise level down. I took off part of my costume and nursed him on the street, cars and all. The police man walked over to us at one point and I thought he was going to arrest me. Seriously. Then, we were nursing later on the porch while they set up another scene inside. I guess they needed me. The PA runs out and sees what I am doing but doesn't want to report over the walkies because he thinks it will make everyone look. All I hear is my name being called in every direction. Finally, the director runs out looking like he is about to pitch a fit, sees us, doesn't say anything, and walks back inside. When I made it onto set, in about two minutes, they were all apologies. I guess they don't have many nursing moms on set.

The entire commercial is 30 seconds. Wyatt will probably be in about 2 seconds, my butt about 2 seconds, my hands 3 seconds, and my face about 1 second. Yet, we were there for a good 9 hours. I am not sure when it is going to air. Hopefully, I will get a copy of our big debut to show at family gatherings when we air the episode of Blues Clues that Lizzy and I were in ages ago. All in all it was a memorable day!