Being Kendra_ Cribs, Cocktails, and Getting My Sexy Back - Kendra Wilkinson [80]
I love my family, but they also need to understand that I have a new family. I would love for them to be a part of that, and luckily my brother and grandma have chosen that path. I don’t always do everything right, but I’m trying my best. There is no handbook that you automatically receive when you have a baby, and there isn’t one when you enter Hollywood either. Jack Nicholson isn’t standing on Sunset Boulevard passing them out, saying, “Here’s how to handle being famous.” For me, the rule is just “Don’t ever forget where you came from.” And I don’t mean the 120 miles from San Diego to Hollywood. I mean in your heart.
There are celebrities out there whose entire careers are based on partying. They’re not married and they don’t have children; they just get drunk and host a party. For a short period of time in my life several years back, that was me! I’ll be the first to admit that I can see why the average person would be jealous of them. Who wouldn’t want to live that lifestyle when they are twenty-two years old? But if you know me, what I’ve gone through, and what I do every day, you should be able to see past that and realize that’s not me now.
My mom became one of those people who watched me on TV and saw me in magazines and thought those were what I was choosing as my priorities in life. Because we haven’t seen each other in a while, and I went two weeks without calling her, she started to believe I was choosing fame over family. She’d watch Entertainment Tonight and see me posing on the red carpet and blowing kisses at the TV and wonder how I had time to make the appearance and blow kisses at all of America if I didn’t have time to call her. If I could call a reporter at Us Weekly and give an interview for thirty minutes, then why couldn’t I leave her a voice mail? In her mind, it seemed that, Kendra Wilkinson didn’t exist anymore. I was now “Kendra.”
Well, she’s right. I didn’t call her for two weeks. We used to talk every two or three days. The baby came, we moved around, and the calls dwindled to about once every week. Then we moved across the country to Philly (where Hank subsequently left me) and the calls dropped to once every two weeks. Time flew, I forgot to call her—and anyone else I loved too—but she couldn’t accept that as an honest mistake. I wasn’t feeling like myself and I didn’t have anything upbeat to share, so I just didn’t feel like talking. She wouldn’t accept my apology, and she appeared unable to accept the fact that my marriage and having a child and a career became my priorities. I did put my child and my family life before her. I’m just not sure if that’s wrong of me or not. I look at my beautiful son and I know that I have to give him my all. He’s so thoughtful—he shares his food and toys, he loves getting hugs and giving kisses, and he loves nothing more than to be around people. He’s a good boy and a direct result of the time and effort I spent with him. I wonder if my mom thinks I’ve done something wrong in that department. She’s never once said, “Kendra, you did well.”
The first week I went without calling her I was really busy. Monday turned into Tuesday, which turned into the weekend. But then the second week came up, and I wondered why she hadn’t called me to check in. Hank Jr. was teething and had a really bad cold. I wasn’t sleeping and neither was he. As a mom, I had to focus on what my baby needed. I just couldn’t call, and anyway, we should just call each other when we want; it shouldn’t always just be me having to check in. So I tested that a bit and waited to see when she would call me. I didn’t make that a big deal at the time because I was so busy; if a call didn’t happen it