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I think I could feel better.
Morgan Johnson; Getty Images; Product images courtesy of the brands
Depending on who you ask, Bell is Princess Anna or shes Veronica Mars.
But Bell is more than the sum of her characters.
Shes also dry, funny, and drops a tastefully planted F-bomb every now and then.
She has that kind of presenceand that kind of voice.
For Bell, her bedtime routine is all about winding down.
Dax gets the majority of his energy at night, and I am the opposite, she says.
That has always been strange for us.
He comes home after work and Im like, Oh, my God, take it down a notch.
We need that man power because they are very strong-willed children and have both of our stubbornness combined.
For example, I say, Whats your favorite food?
[The kids] say, Macaroni and cheese.
What do you love about it?
What does it make you feel like?
Makes me feel full.
Okay, what do you use to eat macaroni and cheese?
Oh, great, so if you didnt have your teeth, you couldnt eat macaroni and cheese?
And do you know how you keep your teeth?
You lead them to their conclusion.
Kids dont want to get advice day in and day out.
I change my tactics often.
They cant read the clock, and that is just fine with me.
They have to connect patternslife is about connecting patterns, right?
Lately weve been listening to audio books to put them to bed, which is pretty cool.
Were on book four of the Harry Potter series, and they love it.
If were not listening to an audio book, we read books.
On her current favorite kids reads
There are so many good childrens books right now.
Our favorite family one is calledQuackenstein Hatches a Family.
But then he learns to love itand its a little platypus.
We have a couple of biographical books about Gloria Steinem that they love.
Theyre very into Gloria Steinem.
They also really like this book calledDear Girl, which is just simple nuggets of advice for girls.
My daughter is also very into this book series calledGood Night Stories for Rebel Girls.
We also like this book calledEdwina, which is by Mo Willems.
Its about being right: Do you want to be right, or do you want to be kind?
What are the things that every human being on the planet believes is true?
Its about acknowledging our similaritieslike laughter is good.
So I was like, Duh, Ill do that.
We have something called aJookithat I love.
And the other thing we love are ourlamby lights.
I give them body massages a lot.
I will just rub their back or their hands.
I use our stuff, theHello Bello lotion.
On what goes down once the kids are asleep
[I] take a deep breath.
Snuggle up on the couch with my husband.
We usually have an hour of TV to watch whatever show were currently obsessed with.
We finishedCheer, obviously, duh, so good.
We watch a lot ofFrontlineand a lot of60 Minutes.
John Oliver, obviously.
We talk shit about our kids and go through pictures of them on our phones.
And we like to stay on the same team.
So, what did you do today?
Oh, how did you interact with that person?
Was it as tough as it was yesterday?
Whats your schedule look like next week?
Just all the housekeeping stuff.
And then I shower and get ready for bed.
I love a good CBD salt bath.Lord Joneshas an amazing CBD bath salt that I love.
Then we watch TV in bed.
We had always both dreamed of having a Craftmatic adjustable bed, so we got aSleep Number.
It is absolutely the best thing on earth.
Its the most elegant way to live.
Ill be like, Do you want to watch TV?
And hell go, Yeah.
Let me bring you up.
[Bell makes a buzzing sound.]
So usually we play around with our robot bed for awhile.
And I said, Well, what if I read it to you?
And he said, Sure, whatever.
Well, I came up with all the voices.
Cut to me reading it to him at night, and hes falling asleep a lot easier.
So, in our bedroom, the last part of our night is putting on an audiobook.
Usually I am in a full matching set of jammies.
Currently Im into thisvelourtracksuitby Suzie Kondi.
And Dax just sleeps in his chonies.
Hes an underwear kinda guy.
We both have a stack of books that were desiring to read that I doubt well ever get to.
The irony is that he can always find things easier than me.
My side looks clean, but I cant ever fucking find anything.
On silk pillowcases and hoarding sheet masks
I love a silk pillowcase.
Im currently using one fromUpstate.
I feel like it helps my skin and helps less breakage on my hair.
I even got a tie-dye one because I was like, Nobody can steal this from me.
This is going to be the most obvious pillowcase, because theres no other tie-dye pillowcases in our house.
They still steal it.
My girlfriends and I recently discovered that we were all saving our sheet masks for nothing.
And we were like, Weve all got like a dozen sheet maskswhy are we saving these?
So we created Sheet Mask Wednesday.
WeMarco Poloeach other in our different sheet masks and catch up about the week.
He acts like hes not into it, but hes all over my products.
Im like, Im sorry, wheres my hyaluronic acid?
Sulwhasoo makes an amazing mask that I had gotten as a gift.
Its called theConcentrated Ginseng Renewing Mask, and I put it on, and it was likethis is unreal.
I look it uptheyre $25 a piece.
But that one is the best Ive ever come across.
Because what I care about is that theyre forming a bond.
Its very important to me that they share a bedroom.
We talk very candidly about the problems people have faced in the world.
All people, period.
And she was visibly panicked.
I called the school and said, Can I just keep her on my lap?
She wont touch anything.
It was preschool, so they said okay.
Say, Barack Obama was our first black president.
Thats crazy, right?
Because we see people of different colors all the time.
We acknowledge the complexities of the problem while simplifying it for their minds.
And we talk about how women used to not be able to work as easily.
On screen time and whether her daughters watchedThe Good Place
My oldest daughter loves it.
Itd be like reliving some of my best memories.
Im really happy with the ending that was written.
But Im sad because I miss everybody.
Theyre not allowed to play with our phones or have any screens really.
I will also sleep until 9:45, which is really nice, and then get stuff done.
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