Our Life Together

Promotion

So many interviews.  Too many questions to even get my thoughts close to straight.  Opinions from people who don't even matter, rumors swirling around made up of twisted words.

Sometimes, especially right now, I wish I could change the way promoting a movie or TV show works.  I should probably be home, resting and waiting for this baby to decide it wants out, but instead I'm sitting in a dressing room for yet another interview.  This one, however, is with Jimmy Kimmel, and not some asshole who just wants to make me feel bad.

"Our first guest tonight is a multitalented actress who is a longtime friend to all of us. Please welcome Jennifer Aniston!"

I take a deep breath and walk out onto the stage.  Jimmy greets me with a hug, and I walk over to the seat next to his desk.

"You look great!  Thank you for coming out tonight!  How are you feeling?"

"Thank you!  I've been good. Definitely tired and ready for all of this to be over, but I'm enjoying it.  It's so worth it"

"Your husband and I are friends, so we text pictures of the kids back and forth, and the other day he sent me this." He shows a picture of me asleep with Olivia and Jack standing in front of me covered in lotion and marker "Can you explain this one?  Normally at my house this happens when I fall asleep."

"I feel like that should be an ad photo for condoms.  We never had any of these problems before kids." I laugh "I had actually just gotten home from a long day of interviews to find out that nobody had cleaned up any messes while I was gone, and my wonderful husband 'forgot' to make dinner, so I told him to go get pizza while the older kids cleaned their messes.  I sat on the couch to watch Jack and Olivia and next thing I knew, I was woken up by Brad to see this."

"What a rude awakening that was. They even look like they knew what they did.  So who cleaned them off?"

"Brad.  I figure this is my last time being pregnant, so I'm not gonna do anything that I can use this as an excuse to get out of.  He just kinda walked in and took them for a bath while I ate my pizza."

"You can just tell by their grins that they knew they would get in major trouble.  I love it.  What did your house look like?"

"Oh yeah, they knew it.  Olivia even tried the 'but I'm cute' thing when we were telling them they were in trouble for it.  Kids really are little devils sometimes." I think back to all the evidence "My walls looked like a Crayola factory threw up on them and then used lotion to clean it."

"Yet you guys decided to have another because you love messes."

"Yeah, let's stick with that being the reason why.  Wasn't anything else."

We take a commercial break and start to talk more about the movie after.

"This movie really is hysterical.  It had us all choking on our drinks at the premier.  How do you keep a straight face?"

"Well we don't.  It just doesn't happen. There were so many outtakes in this movie that the gag reel is longer than the actual movie.  It's ridiculous, but so worth it."

"Your oldest son, Liam, got to work with you on this movie.  What was that like?  Was he excited?"

"He was definitely excited, but at the same time I don't think it was what he expected.  He's been on set with Brad and I before, but he never had to memorise lines or actually be serious. About halfway through the first day, he was like, 'You're boring, mom.  I wanna go home to Gabe'.  So that was fun."

"It's always a great feeling when your own kid tells you they'd rather be anywhere else, isn't it?"

I laugh, definitely relating to the feeling, and Jimmy ends the interview.

"It's always fun having you here. Congratulations to you, Brad and your family on the baby!" He tells the audience to all go see my new movie, and I walk off the stage soon after.

The second I walk into my dressing room, where Brad and the kids are all waiting for me, Olivia runs over crying because they're being mean to her.  Gabe says that she's lying, while Brad is sitting on the couch looking like he is ready to murder our children.

"Can't you guys just fight later? Please?" I beg, knowing it won't work anyway "I'm starving.  Let's just go somewhere to eat and get over this."

Brad jumps up, quickly agreeing, and we go to the closest restaurant for dinner.

"Mommy this yucky." Liv pushes her food towards me.  I watch as Jack does the same seconds later.

"Guys you need to eat something. We aren't going to feed you later if you don't eat now." Brad says.  Jack pulls his plate back and eats a few fries.

"I want hotdog." He decides "Not sandwich."

"Fine." I give in "But if you don't eat that then you're going to bed without dinner."

"Can we get ice cream later?" Liam asks "We actually ate our food."

"Yeah, I don't care." I figure I could eat some too.  We all finish eating after a few more arguments, and finally leave for our ice cream.

"You look tired, Princess." Brad comments on Olivia laying on me, half asleep, with her ice cream about to fall out of her hands.

"I not tired!" She quickly jumps up, dropping some of it "I just laying with baby."

"I'm tired."  I complain "This day has been way too long."

"I'm not!"  Jack yells "Ice cream makes me not tired!"

"Yeah, we know."  Liam rolls his eyes "I'm sleeping in the extra room if he's still like this later."

"Don't worry, we'll just lock him in the garage or something."  Brad says.

"I like that idea.  He always annoys me."  Gabe adds.  Jack couldn't care less about what they're saying, but he tries to act upset.

"It's okay, buddy.  Mommy still loves you."