I’m struggling a weee bit to keep my head above water. In a good way, though. Like, today, I’ve been busy having a blast over at — *drum roll* — CELEBRITY CANDY, my new celebrity blog at TodaysParent.com! We’re working on the format a little, so you will see some awesome changes soon. But, it already feels like HOME.

Some of you remember I gave up celebrity blogging after Rascal was born because, well, something had to go. But, as soon as I started my first Celebrity Candy post just yesterday, it felt like HOME.

Of course, you won’t find much celebrity snark from me. I’ve always been a bit of a goody-two-shoes when it comes to celeb blogging (except for that darn Worst Celebrity Feet post that brings hundreds of visitors here every day — gahh!). And Today’s Parent likes to keep things positive. So we are, indeed, a match made in heaven — laaa!

What else? I’ve also been busy writing tons of articles. I honestly haven’t written this much since grad school. And, again, all this writing feels like HOME.

Want to check my stuff? I promised I’d keep you posted. Here are the latest online articles by me (on MSN and/or TodaysParent.com):

1. Help My Kids Are Out of Control

2. Bringing Sexy Back

3. How To Dress Like a Hot Mama This Summer

4. Still Carrying the Baby Weight?

Stay tuned, too, for my first PRINT article — in the August issue of Today’s Parent!

THAT’S what I’m up to at work. And more. And more. And more. More later, including très cool pics of the office that I’ve been meaning to share for, like, weeks now!

Love!

xo Haley-O

So I have a little favourite thing I’ve been meaning to share with you. By now you probably know I love The City and Kelly Cutrone — the tell-it-like-it-is fashion PR guru and author of If You Have to Cry, Go Outside. Well, I must have been searching for Kelly Cutrone’s commentary on The City one night, I don’t know, but I came across her new internet talk show with (who knew?) her BFF Justine Bateman, whom most of us remember (and probably wanted to be at one point) from Family Ties. The show’s called Wake Up and Get Real, and it’s a series of short YouTube vids of the two of them telling it like it is.

I think I’ve watched every video they’ve published because I have all that time on my hands, you know. Although I (obviously) loathe the one where Justine shows us exactly what she does with the poor gophers on her property, the show’s da bomb. And the work Justine has done to help save the internet is really admirable.

Although she is a wee on the skinny side, I love the show she did on weight. It’s positively brillers….

And, most recently, I loooove the show she did on her “OLDER FACE”!

Is it just me? Is she not teh awesome???

Kelly and Justine always seem to talk about the things I’m thinking about. I’ll be 36 in September, and I’m thinking about aging. Ever since my tooth situation, I’ve been feeling less attractive than ever. And this chai detox? Holy breakout, batman! (Oh yes she did just write that!) But, the thing is, I don’t obsess care about it like I used to. I feel like my “inside” has finally taken over the “outside.” Maybe that comes with a) losing a front tooth, and/or b) gaining 80 pounds in pregnancy and actually living to tell about it (versus when you were in your 20s and almost died when you gained 0.5 pounds since breakfast)? I do look a lot different than I used to, and, like Justine, I feel more represented by my current face. Welcomed frown lines provide the perfect balance for my sweet-and-innocent, smiley features. I still look younger than my years, or so they tell me, but whatevs, you know?

That said, this extra weight on me — this 10-20 lingering pregnancy pounds — does NOT represent who I am inside. When I look in the mirror before I go to work in the morning (still shocked at the image of me in work clothes after all these years!), I look much thinner than the me that I see in photos or occasionally catch glimpses of in store windows.

I don’t know what the story is with my weight. But, if I keep going as I am — speaking from the inside, and hopefully worrying less and less if people are staring at my, erm, gumline — I feel like it will just melt away. All that, and maybe a jog now and then? Me? A jog? You read that right…. I keep hearing it in my head. And my intuition is on fiyah lately….

Sort of like a few weeks ago, when I was naming our new puppy Betty White, and all I could hear in my head when I was thinking up names for her was “BETTY…. BETTTTTYYYYY!”

WELL, just this morning, I learned that the old woman who died in our living room four years before we moved in here was named BETTY!!!! And her last name began with a W!!!!! And sounds a lot like WHITE!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhhhhaeeeaearardafdeqrgaq4go!!!

CREEPY!!!

Anyway. Here are some other hot “older” celebs I love and want to age like….

And, of course….

Love!

xo Haley-O

I am actually watching Dancing With the Stars right now. You’d think, as a former dancer, this would be my kind of show. But, I’m sorry, this is no So You Think You Can Dance. And the fact that I am actually watching this show is proof that Mondays SUCK for TV. But, don’t mind me, I’m just bitter because my PVR neglected to record last night’s episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

LOVE. (Get well soon, Bret!)

Maybe my PVR didn’t record Celebrity Apprentice because it was recording MTV’s The City Aftershow and the finale of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains at the same time. BEST SURVIVOR EVER, by the way.

LOVE. And, you’re right, Russell, all that matters is AMERICA loves you. Also Canada. You’ll always be the best player ever to me. Also Boston Rob.

SWOON.

While I’m at it, maybe I should just admit to you once and for all that I’m a huge Justin Bieber fan. Baybeh, baybeh, baybeh, ohhhh!

#TWIEBER, FTW! *Cough.*

Oh, come on, you know you love it. And I know I’m not the only one…. The other morning, the Monkey had something very important to whisper to me, wide-eyed:

Mama, a girl in Grade 3 told me there’s a chocolate factory? And it takes you to Hollywood! And to Justin BEAVER!

Awesome. Almost as awesome as this little gem:

Maybe after Space it’s Heaven, and after Heaven it’s a scary world where there are cow aliens.

I’m still amazed that she’s thinking about what’s after Space. I thought I was the only one who thought about stuff like that on a regular basis. Like, what’s beyond INFINITY? I mean, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING!?!?!

Before I send you away to contemplate that (let me know what you come up with), here’s an update on our new puppy! In case you haven’t heard, we’ve named her BETTY WHITE — not too far off from the Korean name “HINDUNG,” meaning “WHITE,” that she came to us with, right? It totally suits her. BETTY!

Check out the BLING….

So far Betty’s totally low maintenance, and she’s making us all really, really happy. Aside from a little de-worming incident — and I honestly don’t know what’s worthier of ewwww than a stunning combination of poop and worms — she’s utter perfection. She doesn’t even seem to need much training. The Monkey, on the other hand, does, ALAS….

Love!

xo Haley-O

*UPDATE*: Based on the comments, I think I should point out (didn’t think I had to because YOU all know my type by now — BRUTISH, HAIRY, MANLY — *cough,* CLIVE OWEN, *cough*). I don’t have the hots for Beiber (I could totally be his MOTHER). It’s all about the muuuuusic! Baybeh, baybeh, baybeh, ohhhhh!

I’m numbing out in front of America’s Next Top Model, but it’s hard. Tomorrow (Thursday) is the big day. I’m finally getting this front tooth extracted. I’ll eventually have a beautiful permanent tooth in there. For the next year, though, I’ll be wearing a fancy denture. It was either that, or this (Amy Winehouse):

Or this (Paris Hilton):

Or this (Johnny Depp):

This (Jim Carrey, who took his bonding off and exposed his *chipped* tooth for Dumb and Dumber — totally worth it):

Or this (ED HELMS, who removed his permanent implant for Hangover — also totally worth it):

Or this (Demi Moore, BRAVELY posting her fabulous toothlessness on twitter):

Or this (Dakota Fanning — I should be that confident toothless):

Or this (Mike Tyson — my dentist promised he’ll do a better job than this):

Sighhh. It could be worse. I’ll be fine. It’s just a tooth. I’ll rock this denture…. I’m sure there are more, but I couldn’t make it to thirteen celebrities. My stomach’s turning. Time to change the subject….

In other news, I had my makeover….

My new Mysore Ashtanga yoga teacher swears I’ll be rid of that belly in no time with regular practice. Why didn’t I think of Ashtanga before? Watch the pounds melt away — I’m TELLING YOU. I’ve never sweat so much. And I’ve never ached so much! More later. Nervous Nelly over here.

As I was saying, yesterday, Mark’s, treated me like a total princess. It was exactly what the dentist ordered…. I didn’t have time to get my hair and makeup done, but, although stylist Afiya Francisco had her work cut out for her, I did get myself some fabulous new sunglasses, RED purse, frilly white top, and ACTUAL PANTS — I was shocked and elated that the best pants for me were SLIM FIT. After all that, I got my photos taken by the PHOTOJUNKIE himself. Love! It was a good day. (There are more pics on the FAN PAGE — check it, and join us!)

Today, I got my facial at Pure and Simple, and a really GREAT eyebrow job.

You’d think with all this pampering, I’d be ready for tomorrow, but I’m not.

I washed a bunch of lettuce, but it’ll probably rot before I get my appetite back. As soon as America’s Next Top Model‘s over, I’m going to make a big batch of my swamp smoothie. I’ve gotta eat SO healthily for optimal bone growage — the stronger the bone, the faster the process, the sooner I can get a permanent implant put in.

As my boyfriend Tim Gunn would say, MAKE IT WORK. I’m gonna MAKE IT WORK. I’m going to take some Rescue Remedy, do my yoga, relax, heal, and make it work. Watch out, Gorgeouses, here I come! Errrrm…. Heh. Okay. Off I go…. Good bye, Tooth. Enter courage. Scared.

Think of me at 3:30….

Love….

xo Haley-O

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe….

–Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky,” 1872

I always imagined the reader of Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” having a lisp. But I never imagined I would ever have one…. After yesterday’s meeting with the dentist — the fifth one in the past month — it seems I may, indeed, be sporting a lisp in addition to the likely-imperfect temporary denture I’ll pop in immediately after they extract my top front tooth NEXT THURSDAY.

We had a long talk yesterday, the dentist and I. He had a whole speech prepared for me — for me, who is what he called “sensitive.” He wanted to prepare me for the reality of what’s to come this year. For it will, indeed, be a year before I have a permanent tooth in place and, we hope, a celebrity-perfect smile.

Thank God, I remind myself: not an eye, a leg, a breast. Just a tooth. Just a tooth. Just a top front tooth. There’s humour in that. There’s humour in that. Hahahahaha! So FUNNY!!!

And he put that speech in writing for me to take home and pin on my wall when things…ARE BAD. Like the lisp. (I may have a LISP for a few months.) Like a “concavity” I may develop just above the gum line. (I may have a gory smile for a few months.) Like the raised gum line on four front teeth that I’ll have for six weeks. (I may have a GORY smile for a six weeks.) Plastic surgery, baby. That’s what this is, and how very Real Housewives of Orange County of me.

I am thoooo trendy. Brillig.

It all goes down next Thursday. A test of vanity, ’tis.

BRING. IT. ON.

I may even do a party trick or two at Blogher….

Don’t let me drink.

The good news is I’ll have something to wear at night — INVISALIGN *cough* — so I won’t actually have to go to sleep toothless. Phew…..

The good news is, too, that I’m not the only GORJ CELEBRITY (heh, self-esteem in progress) who’s missing a front tooth (well, will be as of Thursday…). DEMI MOORE LOST HER FRONT TOOTH LAST YEAR AND POSTED PHOTOS ON TWITTER! Here’s the thread (via Celebitchy):

Haha @charwils65 I personally thought this look went out after you were 8 didn’t know I would be rocking it again!

Thanks @sugarhigh77 was happy to share and always appreciate the opportunity to find humilty!!! Or at least be able to laugh at myself!

Haha @questionoflife are you a dentist? No implant but thank god for modern dentistry!

That means alot coming from you thx for the love HS! RT @hotstewart Gurrrrrl!!! Own that gap in your teeth! OWN IT GURRRRL!! HOT!

lol RT @panina: @mrskutcher i bet that u’ll be the guest star in the new sequel of “LOST ” (MY TOOTH) ))

Needless to say, I’m her new biggest fan. And I may just tape these pictures on my bathroom mirror, for those dark times this coming year, when I’m cleaning my denture….

Now all I need is a pair of those sunglasses…. And a good thpeech therapitht.

LOVE!

xo Haley-O