Mommywood (20 page)

It‘s becoming all too clear to me that Liam, and eventually Stella, are kids who are going to have ample opportunities to embarrass their parents. Or rather, we‘re setting them up to embarrass us. For instance, we were on our way to an event to protest Proposition 8 (the ban on gay marriage in California).

When we stepped out of the house—we were still on Beaver Avenue—we saw our neighbors with their son, Sam. Sam is really cute with Liam. He always wants Liam to come over to play tag or catch. So when Sam yelled, ―Can Liam come over and play? we decided we weren‘t in a hurry and there was time for the boys to run around together.

Now, Liam was all duded up for the event in True Religion jeans, a Lucky Brand shirt, and gold L.A.M.B. shoes (from Gwen Stefani‘s children‘s line). Sam was out there with his mom and another adult. The two boys were kicking the ball around. Then Sam‘s mom said, ―Look at those gold shoes! I was embarrassed. I have different styles for different situations.

It‘s like I do costume changes. I have my ―mom outfits, with flip-flops and jeans, and my ―going to be photographed outfits, and my ―fashion event outfits. This may sound nuts, but Liam kind of has the same setup: he has different wardrobes for different contexts. I knew that at a Hollywood event, people—

especially the ―No on 8 gays—would see his gold shoes and say, ―Aw, he looks fierce. But in a normal suburban neighborhood they were probably a bit much. I nervously laughed and racked my mind for a situation-appropriate joke. I didn‘t want to mention the Prop 8 rally. Who knew what her politics were? I didn‘t want to sound defensive. She wasn‘t being mean, she was just noticing the shoes. I was the one who was insecure and trying to make sure she didn‘t think I wanted Liam to be a tricked-out toddler (most of the time). Finally I just said, ―When in your life can you wear gold shoes without being mocked if not under the age of two? She chuckled kindly.

Phew.

But for the record, Liam looked awesome in his gold shoes.

Thank you, Gwen Stefani.

The Prop 8 protest wasn‘t a unique occasion; we were starting to bring Stella and Liam along to just about all the events we attended. Or more accurately, we stopped going to most events, and the only ones we managed to get to were kid-friendly. I haven‘t been to a movie premiere in ages. I‘d rather stay at home on premiere night and go later, with my husband, in sweatpants, without makeup and four-inch heels. One week it was the Prop 8 protest. The following week we had two events: Jenny McCarthy‘s autism benefit at the Treehouse Social Club, a cute playspace café in Beverly Hills, and a charity event at Build-A-Bear, benefiting the Ronald McDonald House.

Dressing for an event was always a fashion project, but bringing both babies for the first time complicated matters even more. I had to think through how the red carpet would go. When I knew I was going to be carrying the kids, my instinct was to be in my mom wardrobe. I always wear flats, flip-flops, or sneakers as a mom. But I knew that at an event, photos would be taken.

The magazines would scrutinize my outfit and assess my postbaby weight loss. Heels elongate legs, make you look thinner, and are more fashionably accepted. I had to wear heels.

Still, I couldn‘t exactly walk around for two hours wearing Christian Louboutin stilettos, holding a baby and chasing a toddler. That was ridiculous. So what was the happy medium?

Wedges. I‘d wear wedges. But I couldn‘t help wondering how the other celebrity moms did it. I always saw photos of Katie Holmes in four-inch heels with Suri. What was her secret? Did she dump those gorgeous shoes in the gutter the minute the photos were taken? I had to wonder. I‘ll ask Kate Winslet next time we chat.

I wore jeans to both events that week, with a cardigan and wedges one day and a soft black cashmere sweater and boots the next. After they took the family shot, Dean would step out of picture for the female-only fashion shot. But I was going to be so casual that I worried the outfits weren‘t fashion-worthy enough for the magazines. When I go to an event, I feel like I have to wear an outfit that garners some degree of fashion praise. In all my ventures, especially the clothing and jewelry companies, being Tori Spelling—fashionable Tori Spelling—is my business. What if they said I‘d lost my passion for fashion?

What if I wasn‘t even a ―Fashion Don‘t? What if I was just a

―Didn‘t Bother? Well, I was wearing what I was wearing, so I‘d find out the hard way.

In the days leading up to the Build-A-Bear event, Liam was starting to discover his little sister. It was really sweet…except when it wasn‘t. On Friday night Dean and Liam were sitting on the couch in the family room watching cartoons. I came in and sat down with Stella. I said, ―Look, Monkey. Buggy‘s here.

She‘s going to watch cartoons with you. As I watched I saw Liam, his eyes still focused on the TV screen, reach over and slowly take Stella‘s hand. I couldn‘t believe it. I caught Dean‘s eye and mouthed to him, ―Look! It was the cutest thing I‘d ever seen, my two small children holding hands. (And, yes, watching TV together, but we‘re a TV family, what can I do?) Dean and I were blissing out on our moment of family love.

Then, as I watched, the hand holding got increasingly enthusiastic. Liam squeezed Stella‘s hand tighter and tighter until she started screaming. I extracted her and hid my panic while I assessed the damage. Was her hand broken? Would she ever recover? Was hand modeling a career she‘d have to forsake? Then Liam started in; he doesn‘t like when Stella cries.

Family love was transformed in an instant to family grief.

Eventually everyone calmed down and, total collapse aside, we decided that holding hands was a giant step. Liam had noticed Stella. He was injuring her. They were turning into real siblings.

The next day I put Stella on the bed with Liam. Usually when I put her next to him, he pushes her away, but this time he started petting her head. I said, ―Is this your baby? and he nodded. Then he started to get excited and said, ―Baby, baby!

and pointed at her. Then he started playing a game where he‘d go up close to her face and say ―Boo! She thought it was hysterical, which got Liam more excited, and the more excited he was, the rougher he was. Finally, since at this age all things fun must end in tears, he did it one too many times, hit her in face, and she started crying. Game over.

The point is, the whole weekend we saw the two kids connecting. He rolled on top of her and made her cry. He bit her foot and made her cry. He grabbed her and made her cry. We clearly had to work on the whole gentle thing, but he was really interacting with her. And Stella at five months looked at Liam with such adoration. You could just see the years ahead, that she was going to look up to him as a big brother and a hero for the rest of her life.

After that auspicious weekend, we brought both babies to the Build-A-Bear event at Hollywood and Highland, where the Oscars take place. It was Stella‘s first red carpet appearance. I had her in my arms. Liam was really excited. He loves walking the red carpet. But then he saw a kiosk with an Elmo puppet. He fixated on the Elmo. We wanted to keep things moving smoothly, so we bought it for him. But then Liam decided that he absolutely didn‘t want to go into Build-A-Bear. That took us by surprise. We pointed at the bears in the window. Could any child resist so many cute, furry bears? One child could: Liam.

And when I say didn‘t want to go, well, we‘re talking full-fledged terrible twos meltdown. Dean was holding Liam, but Liam was arching and screaming, trying to get down. You know, classic grocery store tantrum. Except we weren‘t in the grocery store. We were surrounded by celebrities in fancy dress and cameramen ready to document this particular tantrum to be filed and resuscitated ad nauseam for the rest of Liam‘s life.

Maybe suitable for his private, extended family video montage, but not for the general public.

Dean put the squirming child down, and Liam hurled himself face-first onto the red carpet, screaming and crying. I said, ―Don‘t worry, Liam, Tara Reid did the same thing on the red carpet last week. A paparazzo looked at me and said,

―Really? Oh, come on, seriously people. It was a
joke
. I said,

―No, I‘m just trying to make light of the fact that my son is having a tantrum on the red carpet, you‘re taking pictures, and I‘m completely embarrassed.

At home when Liam has tantrums I talk him through them. I kneel down next to him and calmly say the stuff that moms say:

―I know you‘re frustrated and can‘t find words. It‘s okay to be upset. Try to use your words. When you can pull yourself together we can go and have fun. I articulate his situation because I know he can‘t explain his feelings. But this time we weren‘t at home. We were surrounded by people documenting the situation. The unspoken understanding between me and Dean was that we didn‘t want to make this a big deal. The more we called attention to the tantrum, the more of a big deal they would make it in the press. (Thanks in advance,
TMZ
.) Liam wouldn‘t care now, but one day he might. We‘d just let the tantrum run its course. We hoped that would happen quickly and when he recovered, we‘d move on. And that‘s what happened.

Someone rushed up to us and handed Liam a Build-A-Bear.

(Great, my son was now being rewarded for his wonderful behavior.) Liam paused to examine his new friend, and just like that, the tantrum was over. Calm was restored to the red carpet. I looked at Liam. He was puffy-eyed and red-cheeked, and his hair was mussed. In my head I made some Nick Nolte mug shot joke. Poor Liam was still trying to catch his breath. I thought maybe tapping into his new love affair with Stella would pull him the rest of the way out of his funk. I said, ―Look, Liam, Buggy wants to see your new Build-A-Bear. He turned toward us and the twenty paparazzi and smashed Stella on the head with the bear. He wasn‘t joking. He was mad. Turns out I had tapped into his love-
hate
affair with Stella. Luckily, Stella just giggled.

Good times, good times. And after that cathartic bear bonk, Liam was fully recovered.

If Liam pulled this kind of stunt at a movie premiere, I‘d question our judgment in taking a child to an adult event, but this was a charity event at Build-A-Bear. We went because we thought it would be a fun family outing for a great cause. The red carpet tantrum—it had to happen. It‘s practically required for admission to Mommywood. I had been initiated.

Dean and I talked about it later. What was the right parenting approach to that moment? Some parents might say you should parent the way you parent regardless of the cameras.

We‘re hip to that; we do it all the time in front of the reality show cameras. But in this case we decided that minimizing the moment was more important. Protecting Liam from the exposure took precedence over walking him through the tantrum. Every parent has to choose her battles. Ours were not going to be fought in public. I decided that the red carpet tantrum is a close cousin to the airplane tantrum. You just try to get through it with minimal trauma to all concerned. And (if you ignore the bear bribe and the abuse of Stella) he kind of worked through it himself and recovered quite quickly. Though maybe I should consider full-body armor for Stella. If they make it in pink.

So Long, Jägermeister Shots

M
ost of our life isn‘t on the red carpet, of course. Remember?

Ninety percent normal. Like most couples who become parents, Dean and I talk about how having kids has changed us. I love the way our days begin. Our morning ritual is that when Liam wakes up, we bring him into our bed. We put him between the two of us, give him his morning bottle. (Yes, he still gets one bottle in the morning. Don‘t judge me!) We all watch cartoons together. As soon as Liam finishes his bottle, he leaps off the bed to sit in his little chair and watch TV from there. Sometimes when Liam‘s sitting there, happily in TVland, Dean gets a little…frisky. I whisper, ―Liam‘s here. Liam‘s watching, and generally manage to put him off. But one morning I succumbed and we started to have sex. What can I say? There‘s just something about SpongeBob. We were under the covers being really quiet. But at some point I turned over and saw that Liam was standing at the side of the bed watching us.

Oh my God. Had we scarred him forever? They say TV is bad for kids! One minute he was sitting in his chair innocently watching SpongeBob and the next he was staring at us, and we were not rated G. Actually, a talking cleaning product is pretty creepy. It‘s hard to say which scene was more disturbing. We stopped (of course!). Dean said, ―Oh, he‘s fine. Good for him!

But I promptly got on the web and started Googling ―primal scene to find out what kind of damage seeing his parents having sex would do to a then one-year-old. The news wasn‘t good. All I could figure out was that some child Freud treated had an image in his head of his parents having sex and became a neurotic known as the Wolf Man. Good-bye, Monkey, hello, Wolf Man. Or maybe Liam thought Dean was hurting me and would rise to protect and defend me. I
was
sort of hoping Liam would have a mild case of oedipal complex and would shift his affections from Dean to me. But this wasn‘t exactly how I had planned for it to come about.

This incident aside, I didn‘t think having children was cramping our sex life the way everyone said it would. Dean and I were sitting around a table with some of the producers from our show. We were talking about sex after babies, and one of the other married men at the table said, ―
What
sex life after kids?

Dean and I have sex three to four times a week! Impressive, right? But Dean isn‘t so convinced. He always says, ―Remember when we met? We had sex three times a day every single day.

Okay, but come on! Who can maintain that? Dean says,

―When we first met, you couldn‘t keep your hands off me. If I came on to you at three in the morning, you were into it, but now you‘re always tired. You seem more in love with your bed. Well, duh! Before we had kids we could sleep in till one in the afternoon on Saturday. Then I‘d lounge in bed while Dean made breakfast and mimosas. If we didn‘t have anywhere to be, and we often didn‘t, we‘d lie by the pool, snack, listen to music, and talk about all the things we were going to do in life. Now we‘re doing those things, our dreams are coming true, and there isn‘t much time left over for having new dreams. Or having sex.