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" Since she was a girl, Jaime Pressly has dreamed of being a mom. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the one thing that has been consistent throughout my life and was always a goal for me,&amp;quot; says the North Carolina native, with the same southern drawl that fans would recognize from her sidesplitting portrayal of Joy on NBC&amp;#039;s hit comedyMy Name Is Earl. &amp;quot;That goal is why I&amp;#039;ve worked so hard; I wanted to know I could financially support myself as well as my children.&amp;quot; So it&amp;#039;s a lovely coincidence that her son, Dezi James, is expected to arrive on May 13, 2007, Mother&amp;#039;s Day, just as her doublewhammy career as an actress/designer is hitting warp speed. This spring she added a second clothing line, J&amp;#039;aime Collection, to her already successful boutique line of contemporary women&amp;#039;s knits, J&amp;#039;aime by Jaime Pressly. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always had an interest in design, and I have always loved creating things,&amp;quot; Jaime explains. &amp;quot;When I was a kid, one of my goals was to go to the Fashion Institute.&amp;quot; And what with My Name Is Earl garnering numerous Emmy Awards and nominations for its 2006 season \u2014 including a nomination for Jaime as Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series \u2014 it doesn&amp;#039;t look like her other day job is going anywhere anytime soon. Curled up on a couch in the downtown Los Angeles office of her company headquarters, Jaime credits her success to her lifelong willingness to defy convention. At age 15, she gave up a life of dancing (her mother was a dance instructor) to become an international model. She became legally emancipated from her parents so that she could leave school and travel to Tokyo to pursue that career. In the late &amp;#039;90s, she started the transition to acting \u2014 and makes no apologies for some of the less-than-Oscar-caliber choices she made early on: bombs likePoison Ivy: The New Seduction and Ringmaster (&amp;quot;Hey, they paid the bills,&amp;quot; she says with a shrug). Nor does she regret her decision to appear on two Playboy covers (in 1998 and 2004). &amp;quot;Everything I did and continue to do happens for a reason, and honestly, I don&amp;#039;t regret much in my life.&amp;quot; As she and her fianc\u00E9, deejay Eric Cubiche, 31, count the days until baby Dezi arrives, it&amp;#039;s no surprise that Jaime has once again chosen to take an unorthodox, unmarried route into parenthood. &amp;quot;Anytime someone has said to me, &amp;#039;You can&amp;#039;t do that,&amp;#039; I have answered, &amp;#039;Watch me.&amp;#039; How do you feel about becoming a mom for the first time?   I have worked so hard since I was 15 years old, all because I wanted to be a mom. It&amp;#039;s sort of surreal, but because it&amp;#039;s something I&amp;#039;ve always wanted, it also feels so natural and right. I cannot wait for this boy to come. Last night Eric and I were putting together the bassinet and I couldn&amp;#039;t stop staring at it. This morning I said to Eric, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re having a baby 50 days from today,&amp;quot; and he was like, &amp;quot;Why are you counting like that? It&amp;#039;s freaking me out.&amp;quot;  What&amp;#039;s the surreal part?  I keep thinking about the day when I&amp;#039;m leaving the hospital and getting in the car, and Eric will be driving and I&amp;#039;ll be getting into the backseat next to the baby, and then getting to the house with the baby and walking in the front door \u2014 all in this whole new way we&amp;#039;ve never done before. Just simple, little things like that seem so surreal to me because it&amp;#039;s completely different from what we do and know.  The timing couldn&amp;#039;t be more perfect since My Name Is Earl will be on break during the summer.  Everything was planned about this pregnancy. I wanted to have time off for this. I didn&amp;#039;t want to have to worry about my job and being away from my work or the baby.  Do you ever feel overwhelmed having to juggle your obligations to the show, your fashion business, and now your family?   I&amp;#039;ve always been better at doing 10 things at a time than doing one thing. But I don&amp;#039;t think there&amp;#039;s anyone out there who works and is a mother who doesn&amp;#039;t get overwhelmed at some point. Then add some raging hormones into the mix and suddenly you&amp;#039;re asking yourself, &amp;quot;How am I going to do this?&amp;quot; The key to being able to manage it all properly, so that you&amp;#039;re not half-assing anything, is to have an amazing support group of people around you. And when I say support group, I mean real friends and family, and that&amp;#039;s where I&amp;#039;m very lucky: I still have my friends from high school, my manager and lawyer have been with me for 13 years, and all the women I work with on my fashion line have been with me from the start.  What did you learn from your mom about being a mom?   My mom taught me discipline and to never give up. That&amp;#039;s also what dancing teaches you. I always like to say that we dancers know how to dance on broken ankles. You just push through whatever you need to. Those working women of the past three generations who worked and raised families really did do it all and didn&amp;#039;t think they were doing anything special.  What did your dad teach you?   My dad used to say, &amp;quot;When everybody is laughing with you, you&amp;#039;re all walking on the same ground.&amp;quot; That actually changed how I went into auditions. I made sure everyone had a smile on their face before I began.  You&amp;#039;re wearing an engagement ring that you and Eric designed together. Are there marriage plans?  Right now, I&amp;#039;m not planning a wedding \u2014 I&amp;#039;m planning on having a baby. If we decide in another year or even five that we want to get married, then we will. I like things that contradict themselves, in my designs and in my personal life. I want to have a child, but I don&amp;#039;t necessarily think I have to get married to do that.  You and Eric were friends for nine years before you became a couple. How did you meet?  The first time I met him he was such a [jerk]. He was supposed to deejay my 21st birthday party and basically he hired someone else to do it and didn&amp;#039;t show up. But we had a lot of mutual friends so I would see him occasionally. We had that grade-school thing going on, you know, that hit-the- one-you-like thing. That went on for years, but it was friendly and fun. About two years ago, the timing was finally right. He was deejaying my fashion show and came over to play me the finished music. We talked until the sun came up. No making out, no nothing. It was just organic. Did Eric have the qualities you wanted in the father of your son?  Before Eric, I always thought, I am going to end up adopting or finding my best gay friend and saying, &amp;quot;Time to donate some sperm, buddy.&amp;quot; I always thought I was going to do this on my own. But I saw something genuine in Eric. Eric grew up with a great respect for women. He&amp;#039;s also willing to listen without feeling threatened. I think once you realize how someone is really a partner with you, there&amp;#039;s a new appreciation of that other person. You come to see that you&amp;#039;ve got your best friend sitting beside you and there&amp;#039;s nothing better than that.  But is that convenience or love?   You&amp;#039;re going to fall in and out of love with each other a million times in 60 years; we&amp;#039;re only human. But if you&amp;#039;re sitting beside your best friend, you know he always has your best interests at heart. You&amp;#039;ll argue, but there won&amp;#039;t be any cheating and I don&amp;#039;t just mean with someone of the opposite sex. I mean they&amp;#039;re not going to cheat you by doing something that would be detrimental to you \u2014 that&amp;#039;s love. And after 60 years together, it&amp;#039;s not about sex or looks anymore; it&amp;#039;s about being with the person who knows you better than anyone else and loves you anyway.   Has the pregnancy changed Eric?  Oh, God, yes. He&amp;#039;s turned into such a big help. I know that a lot of men don&amp;#039;t want to lift a fi nger, and that was him, too. But I put my foot down right away. I said, &amp;quot;Listen, buddy, this is a team effort.&amp;quot; Since then, he&amp;#039;s there for me 100 percent. A few nights ago we were in bed all comfy, and I turned to him and said, &amp;quot;I have to have McDonald&amp;#039;s right now.\u2026 I need a number two with no pickles and no onions.&amp;quot; And he said, &amp;quot;Is that all you want?&amp;quot; and I was like, &amp;quot;You mean you&amp;#039;re going to go?&amp;quot; and he said, &amp;quot;Of course.&amp;quot; And he got up and went.  Has watching your perfect body morph into something unrecognizable freaked you out at all?   Oh, my Lord, yes! Sometimes I&amp;#039;ll stand before the mirror naked and hold my belly and say, &amp;quot;This is the most amazing thing ever.&amp;quot; But honey, these little saddlebags on the side of me right now [grabs her thighs], I never had anything like that. And my boobs are completely out of control. When my milk comes in, I&amp;#039;m going to be able to feed a small village. After I have the baby, I&amp;#039;m going to get back to the gym and G.I. Jane it and I&amp;#039;ll get back in shape.  How did you decide to name the baby Dezi James?  I&amp;#039;m a huge fan of Lucille Ball. I mean, I&amp;#039;m infatuated with her. Eric is Cuban and Desi Arnaz was Cuban. And sometimes when Eric comes home from work he&amp;#039;ll go, &amp;quot;Luuuuuucy, I&amp;#039;m home.&amp;quot; One day he did it and I went &amp;quot;Dezzzzzzi&amp;quot; and we both said, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a really cool name.&amp;quot; And James is my father&amp;#039;s and my brother&amp;#039;s name.  You&amp;#039;re a young, sexy, expectant mom on a hit TV show. Do you worry about the day when that&amp;#039;s all gone?  No, because just like the last 15 years, I&amp;#039;m going to work my butt off so I can pull a Demi Moore and take time off to just be a mom. And really, as long as women take care of themselves and feel good about themselves, it&amp;#039;s not about age. The most important thing to remember is that friends and talent never get old. For as many wrinkles as we have, we will have just as much wisdom and experience. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a4886/jaime-pressly/>