Credit: Carter Smith/ELLE.
On May 1st Jessica Simpson, 31, gave birth to her daughter, Maxwell Drew Johnson, who weighed 9 pounds and 13 ounces and measured 21.75 inches! Jessica and her fiancé Eric Johnson decided to use the name Drew because it’s Jessica’s mother’s maiden name.
It’s nice to finally see a “normal” baby name from a celebrity after a trend of celebrity baby names that sounded more like fruits, plants, cars, verbs and adjectives than anything a human being would go by. For most of us, this odd celebrity naming convention just furthers the gap between clearly privileged celebrities and the rest of us normal folks with baby’s names like “James” or “Audrey” who either stay at home with us as we try to multi-task with carpools and older kids activities or who get sent to preschool or daycare was we try to multitask at work and quickly change hats to fulltime mom when we get home for evening and weekend shift.
Jessica Simpson is one billionaire celebrity new mom that I can’t help but like. She’s very endearing and relatable with her upfront humorous honesty about everything and particularly her above average pregnancy weight gain. While most celebrity new moms often seem to the average mom like myself like some alien from outer space who look perfectly manicured throughout their effortless pregnancy, gain the perfect amount of weight in all the right places only to be placed on the cover of magazine weeks after birth with their swelt pre-pregnancy figure all intact. It does set the bar rather high for the rest of us “normal” moms without the benefit of special cooks, round the clock nannies and personal trainers and of course professional airbrushing in our photos.
It’s a bit of relief seeing a celebrity who “has it all” looking like most of us when she’s pregnant in her final trimester. She even shows she is a loyal trooper as a friend as she doesn’t shirk her bridesmaid responsibilities and dons the ill-fitting pre-ordained bridesmaid dress in her last weeks of pregnancy (which she has to know all the world will soon see in photos).
Jessica has weight gain much like I did in my first pregnancy which is basically everywhere and in a way that goes beyond flattering in the final countdown months and weeks. However, she does not hide from the cameras or shun interviews or appear embarrassed by her plus size pregnancy figure as you might expect from most former size 0 sex symbol celebrities. Instead, she appears to embrace her new full figure and weight gain with confidence, humor and grace which I think is our best take-away from her example.
I’m sure Jessica will have her enviable figure back in no time she is fulltime breastfeeding her baby in addition to recently signing a $4 million deal with Weight Watchers. (The rest of us would have been happy to have this deal for free, given the appropriate childcare, transportation, overall support for our house and older children, support for our day jobs, meal prep, housecleaning, etc) However, since this is Jessica Simpson, who I would like as my new BFF, I can’t help but support and cheer her on!
It seems every week now there is some major controversial news item and photo over breastfeeding in public. The latest stemmed from a photograph of two Air Force servicewomen, Tarran Eshegoyen-McCabe and Christina Luna, breastfeeding their babies in uniform. The photo of Echegoyen-McCabe was a bit more revealing as she was nursing twins simultaneously and showing some skin in the process. People have called this act “a disgrace” and there have been all sorts of negative comments over these two working women feeding their children while on a break.
Actress Slema Blair has been talking about when she will breastfeed her baby and we are proud to say that it is anytime anywhere. She’s been heard to say that she doesn’t care whom she offends.
I just found these really cool breastfeeding hospital crib cards from the CDC.
