A Whole New Ball Game

Wow! Let me start by saying it's going to be a good season! What a juicy first episode. I'm excited to be blogging again and telling my side of the story!

I had to laugh at myself watching the first segment of me with my children. You must know that not every morning is like that! I wondered why they wanted to keep filming me in my "morning routine" and now I know! I remember that morning like it was yesterday, and it was the most hectic morning out of all of the five mornings that they shot me getting the kids off to school! How cute are those little munchkins? Thank goodness the biting phase is now over in the Bellino family! Melania was the only one that ever had a problem biting, and of course she did it on that morning! However, with three little ones under four years old, I think they acted exactly how they should act! (Well, except for the biting!) My children have been going to pre-school now for over a year, so our morning routines are much more routine and less stressful!

We have also made another change in our family that occurred at the end of filming this season. We let Sandra, our nanny, go, although you will be seeing her throughout this season. Now we have Heather, a 25 year old that worked as my assistant/sitter last year while we were filming. Heather works 25 hours a week, and our life is much more organized and less chaotic (notice "less" chaotic, because it's not not always calm). A lot of people question why we use to have two nannies. When our twins were babies, and James was one year old, we had two nannies to help with all of the diaper changing, meal clean up, toy clean up, etc. At that point it honestly felt like I had triplets. Once the twins turned two and James turned three, we went to one full time nanny. Now that they are three and four, we have gone to one part-time nanny. With that said, my nannies have never been the ones to do the child raising. I take my kids to school, karate, dance, I volunteer at their school, I give them baths, I make the meals, I play puzzles and do the play dates. My nannies have simply helped with the cleanup, activities, babysitting, etc. With that said, I think it's hilarious that I burn the toast and Mel bites Kenna all in one morning! I wouldn't have it any other way though! My life would be so boring without my babies!

Am I the only one who thinks Tamra's scene removing the tattoos had sexual innuendos? And how freaking painful! Yikes, after watching that scene, I realized how thankful I am that I have not yet gotten a tattoo. Phew!

The limo ride to Tamra's party was very interesting to say the least! I pretty much knew the minute I picked Gretchen up at her house that we were in for a battle, but I never thought it would be between her and I, as well as her and Tamra. She opened the door to greet me, and I could already feel tension! I was basically the one that talked Gretchen into going to Tamra's, and I probably shouldn't have! But honestly I didn't want to go alone, and I thought we could all get along and have a good time shopping. I should have turned the limo around the minute Gretchen said, "No, I think I'm going to be a bitch!" That was a good indication of what was in store! I also could tell she was in a slightly confrontational mood when she was joking around about the way I say "Amex" and "because." I laughed it off, because I know I have a midwestern accent that has mostly disappeared after eight years of living in California, however, it still comes out in certain words. It was funny!

Once we arrived at the party, it seemed things were going to be positive -- Gretchen and Tamra said hello in a non-aggressive manner. We were all laughing, having yummy martinis made by a fun bartender, and we were going shopping! How can anyone argue when shopping is involved? Well, leave it to Gretchen! Once the evil eye hat was introduced, and Gretchen made that comment about Tamra, the energy in the room shifted. It honestly never recovered after that point. I did not agree that Gretchen should have done that, however, I knew she was harboring tons of resentment towards Tamra. The fact everyone must keep in mind is that the accusations Tamra made about Gretchen two years ago have devastated Gretchen's life in many ways. Gretchen is still fighting a court case that never would have occurred if Tamra would not have made those accusations. So in my opinion, the resentment is understandable. However, that does not mean I agree with any of the arguments that occurred that day.

First of all, when I made the comment to Gretchen about "Oh, come on princess, wake up and do the 9am workout with us," I never in a million years thought Gretchen would flip out over that. Remember in the car when she made fun of my accent? I was simply being playful, just as she was with me. However, it was apparent that Gretchen was just in a feisty mood that day. I couldn't calm her down, which we can usually do for each other. My only point in saying "princess" at all is that Gretchen doesn't have kids yet, so she can actually choose the time she wakes up. No one with kids has that ability. My schedule depends on my children, so me calling her a princess was simply a joke implying, "I wish I could do that!" It was not meant to hurt her feelings. I would never intentionally do that, and Gretchen and I truly are very, very good friends. We know each other really well, and we talk almost every single day. So normally she would have listened to me if I said, "Hey, let's calm down." But not that day, and especially not during the next scene when Tamra walked outside with the evil eye hat on.

Now Tamra said, "Were you calling me a bitch?" Gretchen spoke her mind again and said yes. Oh boy, this has now crossed over from simply a bad joke, to absolute mayhem. It is so wrong to call someone a bitch at their party! What am I going to do now? You see, I wanted to pick Gretchen up out of her chair and carry her out of the house at that point, but she probably would have decked me with all of the anger she had that day. I kept looking over at her saying, calm down, calm down, stop, stop, but she wasn't listening to me. It was past the point of no return, so I had to just let her go. Tamra and Gretchen do these sarcastic jokes all the time though. They both say that they want to put their fight to rest, that it was so last year, however, they both keep making these subliminal jokes. Girls, stop! You both have too much baggage in your relationship to make any kind of jokes about each other! Finally, somehow, Gretchen's friend, Shawna, saved the day and used our secret term, "lather up," which means, "Let's get the heck outta here!" Thank god, we did. If we had stayed one minute longer, I'm sure there would have been a punch thrown!

By the time we got back into the limo, I was so mentally exhausted that I wanted to take my own limo! Of course now Gretchen and I have to rehash the princess comment. Oh goodness gracious, can I just get home! The good news in all of this is that Gretchen and I talked it out the next day. Although I could see where she felt that I was putting her in a "princess" category, which is where she thinks Tamra and Vicki put her, I still have to say after watching the scene again, Gretchen probably would not have acted that way towards me if it had any other day. But that was the one day she could dish it out, but not take it. She was apparently super-charged and ready to let Tamra have it, and I happened to be lumped into that melee as well.

As for me not running up to Vicki and giving her a hug... Well, I think you all can understand why I acted that way. I thought saying hello was just fine. Obviously, I didn't say it with enough excitement in my voice for Vicki. She doesn't need to claim that I was being "prissy and icky" though because if that were the case, I would have ignored her and exited the room. A few weeks before we began filming, Vicki sent me an email saying let's let the past be the past and move forward. So I sent her an email back saying I would be more than happy to do that, as long as she tells me to my face that she is upset about something instead of gossiping and name calling behind my back, and as long as she doesn't drag my family into it like last year. Tamra's party was the first time I had actually seen Vicki for months, so in all honesty, I felt some of my hurt feelings from last year come back once I saw her. And now, after watching the first episode and seeing her say, "If Alexis wants to be all icky," I am wondering if Vicki once again is going to claim to take the high road and then do the opposite. I did go through the season taking it at face value that Vicki and I were moving forward, so we'll just have to wait and see.

I have learned a lot since last year, and I have to say that this year is a whole new ball game for me -- I will speak my mind.

xoxo,

Alexis