Courtesy Redbook for use on CBB |
The golden rule in Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos‘ house? Mind your P’s and Q’s!
“My kids must be polite to other people,” the 39-year-old mom-of-three tells the January issue of Redbook. “You can get so caught up in your own world that you’re not aware of other people and how you’re affecting them.”
Singling out herself as “the biggest offender,” Kelly says that she “want[s] better” for Michael Joseph, 12, Lola Grace, 8 ½, and Joaquin Antonio, 6 ½.
“The art of please and thank you never goes out of style. I’ve had thank-you notes made up for them, and when they complain that they don’t have lines on them to make it easier to write, I literally get out a ruler and draw the lines.”
The kids have, in turn, helped their mom in at least one important way: By teaching Kelly it’s okay to say no. “With kids, you have to say no to them and mean it, and that’s enabled me to say no in other aspects of my life,” she explains. “I’m not good at it, but I’m learning.”
She’s also made strides in saying yes, to the notion of taking an hour for herself each and every day. “I used to have work and kids, and that was equal,” she notes. “It was work and kids and work and kids and more work and more kids, and I nearly got lost in the shuffle.”
While she filmed Hope & Faith, Kelly was also serving as co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly; Being over-scheduled “took a toll,” she admits, in the form of exhaustion and a short fuse.
“It’s not in my nature to be in a bad mood,” she notes. “But at the end of the day, things were off balance.”
“Then, as the kids got a little older and the sitcom got canceled, it seemed to free up a lot of my time, and Mark suggested that I join a gym. He said, ‘Give yourself that gift, because exercise is good for the mind. What happens to your body is secondary.’ And he was right.”
Click below to read about Kelly’s babysitter guilt.
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