Welcome to So Mini Ways, Yahoo Life’s parenting series on the joys and challenges of child-rearing.
Oct. 10 marks the publishing release of Jessie James Decker’s second cookbook, Just Eat — which is fitting, given that the five-months-pregnant star is currently craving “everything,” she tells Yahoo Life.
“I’m always this way in pregnancies — I want to eat everything, I’m hungry, I’m starving and I crave everything,” the New York Times bestselling author says.
Decker is expecting her fourth child with husband Eric Decker; the couple are already parents to 9-year-old Vivianne, 8-year-old Eric II and 5-year-old Forrest. Prior to this latest pregnancy, the country singer made no secret of her eagerness for the former NFL star to have a vasectomy, going so far as to whip up a “Vasectomy” cocktail in a Father’s Day campaign spot for Ryan Reynolds’s Aviation Gin this summer. As it happens, she ended up getting pregnant again not long after filming the spot.
“It was absolutely a jinxing myself situation,” she says of the ad. “Which is so funny, because truthfully, in that moment while we’re shooting the commercial and we’re talking to Ryan about whether we’d have a fourth, I’m like, ‘No, we’re done. He’s gotta go get this vasectomy.'”
A couple of weeks later, she took her mom to Sicily for nine days.
“Eric really missed me,” she says. “So the day I come home was the day [we conceived]. … It’s just crazy, absolutely crazy.”
Decker learned she was pregnant during a family get-together.
“It took a minute for Eric to even believe me,” she says, noting that her then-pregnant sister Sidney, wife of MLB pitcher Anthony Bass, was in attendance with her family. “Eric was like, ‘You’re pranking me. Sydney peed on that stick. I don’t believe you,’ because Sydney was pregnant at the time. And I’m like, ‘Why would I joke about something like this? Like, this wouldn’t be funny to me. This would be a mean prank. I wouldn’t do that.’ He still made me pee on the stick again.”
While she’s excited for baby No. 4, Decker has ruled out expanding her family even more.
“I’m already being asked, ‘Would you go for a fifth?’ I’m like, ‘Y’all, I was already on the fence [about a fourth]. Like, come on. No!'” she laughs. “No, no. We’re good.”
For now, Decker is getting reacquainted with all the changes that come with pregnancy — particularly, as she’s noted previously, after having breast implants — and looking ahead to one-on-one time with her baby.
“I was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant this time,” says Decker, who credits competing on Dancing With the Stars last year. “My pregnant body just snapped right into knowing what to do. The boobs get bigger, everything just gets bigger … I don’t let it get to me too much. It’s just part of [motherhood]. But it has been a little bit more of Oh, whoa, I forgot about this part.”
The pressure to bounce back after giving birth is something “I don’t really obsess over,” she adds.
“My focus is on the baby,” the Nashville-based star says. “There’s plenty of time to get back into shape, and I breastfeed for a long time and my body does not want to make milk if I’m dieting. So I just have to keep listening [to my body]. I really am in tune. My body wants to eat, wants to enjoy itself pregnant. And then after the baby’s here and I’m nursing, I have to eat in order to make milk. Like, I got to have a cheeseburger and the milk just comes. So I just give myself grace, as I think all women should. You just made a baby — focus on the baby. Focus on your blissful moments.”
Decker also gives herself grace when it comes to negative online comments about her parenting. She’s learned to tune out the feedback and trust her instincts.
“It doesn’t get to me,” she says. “There’s other things that will happen in the public eye that’ll get to me and maybe get under my skin because I’m human. But this one does not, because this is [an area where] I have a 100% confidence. Like, our kids are thriving and they’re amazing and I know we’re doing a great job.”
Part of her focus as a parent is keeping her kids’ “innocence alive.” At 9, avid gymnast Vivianne has a family phone for emergencies, but Decker prefers to “keep her off social media for as long as I can.” Her daughter technically has an Instagram page set up on her behalf, Decker explains, but only because “weirdos” kept making their own fake accounts, “which was so odd.” Says Decker, “She’s never been on it. She doesn’t see it, she doesn’t know. It was just to let other people know all the 20 other pages are creating for Vivi are not real.”
Mealtimes are another important part of her parenting. How does Decker get three kids with different food preferences — the younger Eric is “obsessed with salads” and pasta fanatic Forrest can’t handle too much spice — to enjoy the same dish?
“I would say 95% of the time I will not make more than one meal,” the cookbook author says. “Like, what I make is what you get. And I think if you kind of set that up to begin with, they won’t be asking any questions. I start them off eating pretty much anything very early on … I started giving Vivianne seafood gumbo at 8 months old. So I’m just like, if you start giving them a variety of food early on, you don’t really have the picky problem later on. I know it’s easier to just pop mac and cheese in the microwave, but don’t be afraid to start making your kids be super-adventurous.”
With a fourth baby on the way and a career that spans music, fashion, food and more, Decker has learned how to prioritize.
“I’m not afraid to say no,” she says. “My mom always says, ‘You need to forecast what that looks like. If you say yes, what does that mean for you?’ And I really try hard to do that and think, OK, where am I going to be if I say yes to this? Like, am I going to be in a good place for this?”
Ultimately, she says, “My kids come first. They’re always first to me. And if something interferes with me being there for them, or being a good mom to them, I don’t do it because in the end, they’re all that matters beyond anything. And so I think when people ask me, ‘How do you prioritize?’ or ‘How do you balance?’ I’m like, ‘You put your family at the top and let everything else fall under it, you won’t have any regrets.’ And so that’s honestly how I’ve chosen to live my life at this point.”
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