A Rule Change!

As y'all probably know by now, one of the rules of this blog has been that I don't publish photos that clearly show the Pipsqueak's face.  The rule was set by my sister and -- as I told her back in China -- she's the mama so she makes the rules.  It's not Internet paranoia, either; we know a couple who had an extremely unpleasant visit from the FBI when photos of their young son in a slightly-too-small baseball uniform were found on an extremely unsavory website.

But...

Back in late 2015, the Pipsqueak could semi-clearly be seen in a YouTube video of a Halloween flash mob dance near her home...

In 2016, she could clearly be seen in a YouTube video of a dance competition held by the company that does her after-school care...

And even though we're only halfway through 2017 she's already shown up in a 2nd YouTube video by the same company and another YouTube video from one of the dance studios where she takes classes... PLUS she and several of the girls from our MIT group were showcased performing a Chinese ethnic dance routine on one of the county's cable TV channel shows, complete (and replete) with multiple close-ups of my niece -- a show that was broadcast statewide in February, repeated county-wide in March, and that is now available in full on YouTube and the county's website.

Well, the Long Island branch of the family is here on their annual visit to celebrate a brace of shared birthdates, and early on Friday evening AJ was telling them about how "famous" her daughter is becoming online and listed all the above. I jokingly asked, "Does this mean I can finally show her face on the blog?" and AJ thought for a moment, shrugged, and said "Yes."

I asked if she meant it, and she said "yes" again!

SOOoooo...  I'd prepped a bunch of photos for my next two posts but now I'm going go to back and pull a few more, including some of the better ones that actually let viewers see what the Pipsqueak looks like these days!

It's actually been hard to find appropriate photos for many of my posts, and since 2011 I've made a point of taking at least a couple of shots in which Miri is only seen from behind, or purposely didn't delete accidentally out-of-focus or motion-blurred photos. I'm really excited to finally be able to just go ahead an post "real" pictures of the Pipsqueak from now on! As far as having any of those photos show up where we don't want them to... well, I know a few search tricks and have friends in interesting places online, and that's all I'm going to say for now (but I think we'll be OK).

Stay tuned -- my next post will be early this coming week, and you'll finally see the Pipsqueak!