Livin' 4 the Next 1...

Are you ready or even prepared to explain this one to the kids? First Muppet with HIV.

these days you have to be dead to have a costume made in your honor…

1. Someone’s always hounding you for your autograph. Even if it’s just on a permission slip for the class trip to the recycling center.
2. You travel with an entourage. Okay, so two of them are fighting over a bag of Doritos and one of them has a crusty nose, but STILL.
3. You spend your days club-hopping. How else would your kids get to Brownies?
4. You’re front and center at every awards show. Because your 10-year-old would never forgive you for being absent when he wins the school carnival karaoke contest.
5. You change clothes three times a day. And it’s much more fun if you pretend it’s because you’re being stalked by the paparazzi, not a messy toddler.
6. You’re on a spa diet. Your kids only leave broccoli on their plates for you.
7. You’ve flashed your boobs in public. Hey, it’s not easy to juggle a hungry baby in one hand and unhook a nursing bra with the other!
8. People beg to sleep with you. Well, only because there’s a monster under their bed.
9. You’re covered in tattoos that your kid got in a birthday-party goody bag and plastered on you when you were too pooped to resist.
10. Hassled as you feel right now, in 20 years you’ll miss all the chaos.

From the September issue of Parenting