Being Kendra_ Cribs, Cocktails, and Getting My Sexy Back - Kendra Wilkinson [14]
So even though by adding a baby my schedule is now ten million times more hectic than before, I feel better. I’m having more fun. I would have nervous breakdowns right after he was born; the slightest things would send me over the edge. I didn’t eat breakfast in the shower then because I didn’t even have time to shower! Now I don’t have nervous breakdowns (as much!) because I’ve learned how to smile and make fun of things. That’s who I was at the Playboy Mansion, the girl who made fun of everything and just laughed. I lost that when I first became a mommy but I’ve since learned to laugh again. When I first had the baby I would cry or I would throw a big fit over the smallest things.
Recently while I was on Dancing with the Stars I got in a car accident, just a little fender bender. I was getting off the freeway coming home from a DWTS practice and I was bouncing around listening to hip-hop. There was a car in front of me at the stoplight, but there were no cars coming, so I was looking left, getting ready to turn right. I fully expected the car in front of me to go, and I thought they would have gone already and turned right. But he didn’t. And as I was pushing the gas pedal I realized that, but too late, and I slammed right into the back of him.
If it was my old self, right after I had the baby, I would have freaked out and cried behind the wheel, slamming my hands on the dashboard. But now if things like that happen and I know no one got hurt, I just say, “Let’s pull over and do our business and get on with it.” I keep telling myself that life’s too short to spend it freaking out over every little thing.
But this time I calmly called Hank, because I was right near the apartment, and told him to come. Then I took a breather, I looked through the glove compartment, and I realized I didn’t have any registration or insurance info with me because I wasn’t organized (shocker). But I felt like, “Why freak out?” It is what it is. I can’t change it; no matter what it’s going to be my fault. I could have easily screamed at the guy and said, “Why didn’t you go?!” But instead I just apologized and he said, “It’s okay, Kendra” (his wife was a big fan!). In the past I would have had no filter; I usually couldn’t hold anything back. Being a mom has made me relax; it’s calmed me down. I have a better sense of what’s important. And I’m finding an inner peace in being a mom and letting it go, because really, after taking care of a kid all day, I don’t have time to argue with everyone I come across.
Chapter 4
Seven to Seven, Seven Days a Week
Three sevens are supposed to be lucky. For me, three sevens are my reality. Lucky or unlucky, baby Hank is now up from seven A.M. to seven P.M., seven days a week.
Like most babies, he starts stirring long before he actually wakes up. For baby Hank, that’s at about seven A.M. We don’t allow him to actually get out of that crib until eight A.M., so Hank and I can get an extra hour of “beauty sleep,” but we hear him. We’ll usually just lie in bed and watch Hank Jr. on the monitor. He rolls around, claps, talks to himself, hums some tunes, but when he sits up and starts standing in the crib that’s when we know he’s awake and ready to come out.
Depending on who’s on morning duty, one of us will quietly sneak out of our bedroom, grab the baby, change the diaper, and then get him dressed and put shoes on him. We rarely let him walk around barefoot since he’s still falling a lot, so the shoes help him balance and