Michelle has top top number two!

May 16 2007 By Emma Cullwick, Birmingham Mail

WITH his shock of hair and cheeky face, little Thomas Maloney is the spitting image of his older brother Jake.

And nine-week-old Thomas might prove to be a winner - just like two-year-old Jake, who was crowned winner in the Birmingham Mail's Baby of the Year 2006.

A year on, the tots' proud mum, Michelle Eden, aged 23, of Kings Norton, is giving young Thomas a chance to share the limelight as the search begins for the Mail's Baby of the Year 2007.

"We were thrilled when Jake won and he's become a bit of a poser - he loved all the attention," said Michelle, who lives with partner Brendan Maloney, 26.

"I'm not sure I want Thomas to win, otherwise people might start to think it's a fix!

"But we've now got all these lovely photos of Jake and the newspaper cuttings of him winning, so it would be nice for me to able to put the pictures and cuttings into Thomas's baby book too.

Full-time mum Michelle was one of hundreds who flocked to The Pallasades shopping centre yesterday to have their tots photographed and enter the competition for free.

Parents have until Sunday, May 27, to take their bundles of joy, aged up to three, along to have them snapped by professional photographers.

All of the entrants will then be featured in the Mail in June, and readers will choose the winner.

Partners Sara Richards, 20, and John Newbery, 26, of Great Barr, believe their daughter, ten-month-old Keila-Teigan Newbery, has what it takes to be a winner.

"She loves having her picture taken and is such a smiler," said Sara, who is 16 weeks pregnant with her second child.

Gemma Green, 17, also hopes her daughter Ruby Davis, aged nine months, will clinch the title.

"I'm obviously biased because she's my daughter but I think she's gorgeous and she could win," said Gemma, of Billesley.

And she is not the only one who thinks her daughter's smile is the best in Brum.

Hotel worker Tammy Jones, 21, of Northfield, is rooting for her daughter, five-month-old Kelsie.

"She's always smiling and she's already developed a bright personality, she certainly knows what she wants," said Tammy.