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"  &amp;quot;Dax and I made a pact that we&amp;#039;d be second-child parents,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We wouldn&amp;#039;t take all that nervous energy out on our first [child]. Instead we took it out on our dogs!&amp;quot; leven weeks after giving birth to daughter Lincoln, Kristen Bell walks into a Hollywood photo studio, her petite 5-foot-1-inch frame weighed down by a bag filled with new-mom essentials: breast pump, sterilized bottles, insulated storage pack, and what she calls her &amp;quot;compression garments.&amp;quot; Those would be the industrial-strength Spanx that help camouflage the last bit of pregnancy weight. The 33-year-old wiggles into one for her REDBOOK photo shoot and confesses that they were a vital part of her wardrobe a week earlier, when she hosted the televised CMT Awards. &amp;quot;I committed to doing the CMTs last year, so I said to myself, &amp;#039;My body is going to be what it&amp;#039;s going to be, and I cannot lose sleep over the weight.&amp;#039; I wasn&amp;#039;t going to ruin my first two months with my baby because I was selfishly obsessing about it.&amp;quot; Are you cheering yet? Well, get ready, because Kristen only gets more honest, wise, and lovable from here. And her soon-to-be husband, Parenthood actor Dax Shepard, racks up points just as fast. &amp;quot;He asked me if I would stay chubby after the baby was born,&amp;quot; she says, with a laugh. &amp;quot;I had so much back fat, and now when he hugs me, he tells me he misses it.&amp;quot; The couple, who has been together for five years, might seem mismatched\u2014she&amp;#039;s a squeaky-clean girl from the Midwest, he&amp;#039;s an admitted former drug addict\u2014but really they&amp;#039;re a textbook case of opposites attract. &amp;quot;We are like puzzle pieces,&amp;quot; Kristen says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m too naive, and he&amp;#039;s seen it all.&amp;quot; They took a stand together, vowing not to wed until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Proposition 8 and extended marriage rights to all men and women in California. On June 26, the Court obliged, and Kristen tweeted an official proposal that Dax gleefully accepted. Planning a wedding is nothing compared to the complexities of motherhood. For Kristen, balancing a career and a baby will involve saying no a lot more, something that challenges this self-confessed people-pleaser. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s probably my biggest character defect,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I will disregard all of my boundaries because I cannot stand the thought of someone disliking me.&amp;quot; But there was no way she could turn down her pet project: a movie version of Veronica Mars, the cult TV show that launched her career. After failed attempts by the show&amp;#039;s creator, Rob Thomas, to get studio backing, the film finally got funded thanks to an unprecedented Kickstarter campaign that raised $5.7 million. Kristen started shooting in June. Luckily, her next two films\u2014the just-released indie The Lifeguard, in which she plays an aimless 20-something, and Disney&amp;#039;s animated Frozen, out in November\u2014are already in the can. It&amp;#039;s the 15-hour days on the set of the Showtime series House of Lies that will truly test her ability to have a balanced life. &amp;quot;I still want a career,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Lincoln will always be number one, but I think if you can cut that cord of obsessiveness, then you can work and be a good mother and wife.&amp;quot; REDBOOK: Is this the first full day you&amp;#039;ve spent without seeing Lincoln? KRISTEN BELL: I can&amp;#039;t look at her pictures today, because it hurts my feelings. I start wondering what she&amp;#039;s thinking, like, Where&amp;#039;s the girl with the blonde hair and the boobs? RB: Right\u2014those are probably her top priority at the moment. How are you different now that you&amp;#039;re a mom? KB: I guess this is the first year I&amp;#039;ve really owned the title of &amp;quot;grown-up,&amp;quot; although I don&amp;#039;t feel like one. I think the biggest change for me is that somehow I feel more whole. RB: In what way? KB: All of our considerations pre-babyville were: We love our life; we love our freedom. Are we too selfish to be responsible for another human? Sometimes when we would spend time with our friends&amp;#039; kids, we&amp;#039;d leave and go, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s wait.&amp;quot; We have had a few friends with rabid children! But then we decided that everyone can&amp;#039;t be wrong. The consensus from everyone is that it&amp;#039;s the best thing you will ever do in your life. Dax and I put a lot of stock in that, and they were right. RB: What type of parents are you and Dax? KB: We&amp;#039;ve tried not to freak out, and I think we&amp;#039;ve done a good job so far. But we also have tons of resources. There are hospitals, there&amp;#039;s the Internet, there&amp;#039;s 911. We took the baby to a CPR class, so there&amp;#039;s really nothing to freak out about. RB: Did it feel weird to watch your body change? KB: When I began putting on weight, I&amp;#039;ve got to be honest, it was a bummer. But then my hormones kicked in, and suddenly when I looked in the mirror, I saw Brooke Shields! I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ve felt sexier in my life. It was bizarre.  RB: What did Dax think about your new shape? KB: All he did was tell me how much he loved me chubby. He would call me Miss Piggy, and when he would come home and walk into the house, he&amp;#039;d open his arms and say to me, &amp;quot;Piggy parking,&amp;quot; and give me the biggest hug! RB: Was it hard not to obsess about gaining weight? KB: I refused to worry about something I could not change, and I still refuse. Look, I&amp;#039;m like any other woman. All this evolved b.s. that I&amp;#039;m telling you is my mantra: It&amp;#039;s not something I practice naturally. I had to surrender to not worrying about the way I looked, how much I weighed, because that&amp;#039;s just part of the journey of having a baby. I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size. RB: Well, you look fantastic. But seeing people like Heidi Klum, who hit the red carpet three weeks after delivering her fourth child, doesn&amp;#039;t make it easier for anyone! KB: First of all, there are aliens among us, and Heidi Klum is one of them\u2014fact. Comparison is one long, agonizing death and does not interest me at all. But I&amp;#039;m a healthy eater. [For tips from top nutritionists, see page 104.] I&amp;#039;m getting back into the Bar Method. I also like the Pop Physique DVD, and I really like this terribly uncomfortable Brazilian butt DVD. I love the guy, and even though I can only understand every fourth word he says, he is so encouraging. I&amp;#039;ve been doing that one with my girlfriends, and we laugh and cry through the whole thing because it&amp;#039;s so funny and painful! RB: For your next project, The Lifeguard, you play a pretty dark character. What attracted you to it? KB: It was the first script I&amp;#039;d ever read where I thought to myself, I don&amp;#039;t know when this girl is ever smiling. That is very different for me, because I&amp;#039;m always the happy girl. RB: It&amp;#039;s true\u2014you and the characters you&amp;#039;ve played are so well loved by audiences. KB: Thank God [you said that], because I&amp;#039;d probably crumble if someone said they hated me, because I&amp;#039;m such a people-pleaser [Laughs]. It&amp;#039;s something I work on all the time. My self-esteem comes from people liking me, and I have a hard time when someone doesn&amp;#039;t. RB: You&amp;#039;re never been slammed in the press like a lot of young actresses. Why do you think that is? KB: How about this: I once read a blog that said I had thick calves. It made me feel so insecure. But guess what? I have thick calves, and the blogger was right. What was I going to do, lose sleep over it? I come from a stocky breed of Ohio farmers. Cankles are in the bloodline! But if someone said, &amp;quot;Kristen Bell is a bitch,&amp;quot; I would probably have to go to the bathroom and wipe the tears away. That would kill me. RB: So what&amp;#039;s a Midwestern innocent doing with one of Hollywood&amp;#039;s famous former bad boys? KB: [Laughs] He&amp;#039;s got everybody fooled\u2026 When I first met him, I was very attracted to the bad boy in him and his comedic presence. I am not easily entertained, and he held my attention. I&amp;#039;ve learned more from him about the type of human being I want to be than from anyone else I know. RB: Did you know when you started dating that he had struggled with addiction? KB: Nooo. We had been dating for a couple of months\u2014I had fallen madly in love with him\u2014when I started hearing him tell these very nonchalant stories about the things he had done. There were stories about disappearing for days at a time and some crazy experiences that, from my Catholic-school perspective, only bad people did. So here was this man who I loved and who had made a series of bad decisions that I did not approve of. RB: Did you ever consider walking away? Download Redbook&amp;#039;s iPad edition to read more from our interview with Kristen Bell. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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