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"Kelly Ripa may have become famous by sharing her morning cup of coffee with millions of Americans, but she doesn&amp;#039;t think her daily routine is all that unique. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m like any working mom,&amp;quot; the TV star insists. &amp;quot;When I&amp;#039;m at work, I&amp;#039;m remembering what I forgot to do for the kids, and when I&amp;#039;m with the kids, I&amp;#039;m remembering what I forgot to do at work.&amp;quot; She shrugs her tiny shoulders and well-toned arms and laughs, a cue that one of her trademark self-effacing jokes is about to follow. &amp;quot;And so,&amp;quot; she says melodramatically, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m constantly in a state of guilt and distraction. I mean, I just walk around feeling bad and anxious.&amp;quot;  Don&amp;#039;t believe it. Ripa, who turned the big 4-0 on October 2, has reached a new high point, personally and professionally. Though she seems supremely confident on-screen, it has not always been as easy as it looks. Ripa has learned how to get out of her comfort zone and take risks en route to nabbing what she calls &amp;quot;the best job a mom could ever have.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s also figured out a very important life lesson (with her husband&amp;#039;s help) that&amp;#039;s helped her realign her priorities for the years ahead. And she&amp;#039;s done all this while tackling a host of roles every day: wife to Mark Consuelos; mom to Michael, 13, Lola, 9, and Joaquin, 7; mistress to Chewie, their shih tzu (go ahead, guess how the dog earned that name); morning-show personality; and, now, television producer. For Homemade Millionaire, a reality series developed by Ripa and Consuelos, which debuts November 19 on TLC, the vivacious blond plays host and mentor, guiding female entrepreneurs as they try to make their creations HSN-ready.  Secrets of a Master Multitasker This juggling act is a big job for the petite powerhouse, and her ability to get it all done isn&amp;#039;t due to luck or an army of lackeys. She has some proven strategies that allow her to get through her hectic days. And she&amp;#039;s willing to share. One sacrifice Ripa learned to make early on: nights of long, luxurious shut-eye. &amp;quot;Sleeping is not something I do a lot of,&amp;quot; says Ripa, who usually nods off between midnight and 1 A.M. after watching Nightline. (Talk about taking your work home with you: She often e-mails her producers about interesting topics that have caught her eye.) Her day usually starts at 6:15 A.M., when she gets up and makes breakfast for the kids. Ripa describes the mornings as &amp;quot;a swirling vortex of administrative child care. Mark and I have coffee and the kids have breakfast. Then we are scrambling \u2014 remembering playdates, filling out permission slips, everything we didn&amp;#039;t do the night before.&amp;quot;  Mornings may be busy, but Ripa doesn&amp;#039;t miss a beat thanks to her trusty iPhone. Electronics help Ripa speed through her day. &amp;quot;She has the most apps ever,&amp;quot; says Albert Bianchini, vice president of production and development at Milojo, Ripa and Consuelos&amp;#039; production company. &amp;quot;She blows anyone I know with an iPhone out of the water.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s something else that keeps the household running: Ripa&amp;#039;s take-no-prisoners parenting style. For instance, tween daughter Lola sometimes suffers from fashion commitment phobia. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;d change school clothes 14 times; it was interfering with the morning ritual,&amp;quot; Ripa says, &amp;quot;so now she picks out two options the night before, and we put a lock on the closet door.&amp;quot;  A lock on the closet? Yes, a padlock, confirms the mother who firmly believes that kids need boundaries \u2014 and that it&amp;#039;s her job as a parent to provide them. Wardrobe selections are nonnegotiable. She tells her daughter, &amp;quot;You picked it out last night, and I don&amp;#039;t see what happened since then that these no longer are good options. Put one on.&amp;quot;  On the days when her kids go to school early for band practice \u2014 Michael plays trumpet, Lola plays clarinet and piano \u2014 Ripa drops them off, but normally that&amp;#039;s Consuelos&amp;#039; job, while his wife zips uptown to the ABC Studios at 7:30 A.M. In a half hour, she&amp;#039;s in a chair getting hair and makeup done and preparing for the show and the day&amp;#039;s guests.  That&amp;#039;s when she usually deploys another not-so-secret weapon: more coffee. &amp;quot;She loves her lattes and always starts out with a Venti or two,&amp;quot; says Michael Gelman, executive producer of Live! With Regis and Kelly. &amp;quot;She definitely caffeinates to get going in the morning.&amp;quot; From 9 to 10, Ripa is on the air. She&amp;#039;s America&amp;#039;s sassy and smart BFF, making visitors feel welcome, keeping Regis Philbin on his toes, and sharing easy-to-relate-to stories about being a wife and mother. Afterward, she may tape a show promo or a segment (not everything on Live is always live), but usually by lunchtime Ripa has left the building. For the better part of the past year, she went directly into production meetings with her husband or filming sessions for Homemade Millionaire, but since the series has wrapped, she is now free to go for a three- to five-mile run in Central Park or take a SoulCycle spinning stationary bike class. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s spinning, but they give you little pearls of wisdom,&amp;quot; she explains, &amp;quot;like, &amp;#039;Visualize what&amp;#039;s in your way and then smash through that wall.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Next: Kelly dishes on the importance of family dinners, plus her holiday cooking flops  Exercise keeps her from crashing after the often-hectic rush of live TV and a working mom&amp;#039;s life. &amp;quot;I like what it does for my mind,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;If I&amp;#039;ve had a bad day, if I&amp;#039;m feeling stressed out, if I&amp;#039;m feeling overwhelmed \u2014 it takes it all away. It&amp;#039;s my antidote for everything. If I feel any sort of emotional upheaval, I go for a jog and I feel better.&amp;quot; Ripa has another surefire pick-me-up: &amp;quot;I think about my husband in the middle of the day because I love him and I can&amp;#039;t wait to see him,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;He is my best friend. Nobody knows me the way he knows me. We&amp;#039;ve seen each other in an Avatar, &amp;#039;I see you&amp;#039; way.&amp;quot; Recently, Ripa has added another key item to her juggling tool kit. Though she was raised with the belief that helping others is a good thing, she&amp;#039;s discovered that saying no to some requests &amp;quot;is a gift you give yourself&amp;quot; \u2014 one that makes you a better wife, mother, and employee. And no matter how complicated the day is, Ripa makes sure the family always reconvenes at the dinner table. &amp;quot;Sometimes it&amp;#039;s 6:30, sometimes 7:30, sometimes it&amp;#039;s going to be pizza or takeout,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s important to have that time together as a family. We have some very deep conversations. Mark and I are from the generation where children were seen and not heard, but my kids have great insights and their own opinions about everything.&amp;quot;  Having family dinners wasn&amp;#039;t the norm when Ripa was growing up. &amp;quot;My father was a bus driver, so he got in at strange hours, and my sister and I always had activities. Usually my mom ate dinner standing up or in the car, and my sister and I would eat when we got home,&amp;quot; she recalls. It was rare that they actually all had a meal together sitting at the table, but the holidays were memorable exceptions \u2014 and perhaps that&amp;#039;s why they remain so important to Ripa today.  Talking Turkey Reminiscing about Thanksgiving festivities, Ripa recalls gleefully, &amp;quot;When we were in the dining room and the table was about to be set, it was like &amp;#039;Oh! Here comes the tablecloth!&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Though she is of Italian descent, the Ripa Thanksgiving dinner was an all-American classic. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s looked the same for 40 years,&amp;quot; Ripa says of her mom&amp;#039;s holiday dinner. &amp;quot;Turkey, peas, potatoes, candied yams that my aunt would bring, plus green bean casserole, and of course the gelatinous canned cranberry sauce.&amp;quot;  Those childhood feasts weren&amp;#039;t always storybook successes, though. &amp;quot;My mother will get mad at me for telling,&amp;quot; Ripa says mischievously, &amp;quot;but one time she left the bag with the neck, liver, and heart in the cavity. It was like, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s find the hidden treasure in the bird.&amp;#039; Scary, right?&amp;quot; Another time, Ripa&amp;#039;s aunt brought a frozen premade pie. &amp;quot;It was the kind that you put in the oven and bake, but my mom just put it out to thaw, and it was raw pie soup.&amp;quot; Ripa has had her own festive flops, too: &amp;quot;I did a Martha Stewart brine \u2014 because I will do anything that Martha tells me to do in her cookbooks \u2014 and I didn&amp;#039;t realize one side of our oven had shut down, so I had a half of a cooked turkey. And I&amp;#039;m staring at this turkey and I&amp;#039;m thinking, Half of that is raw. So we started cutting the turkey in pieces, putting it in pans and adding chicken stock, all on the right side of the oven.&amp;quot; It turned out fine in the end, but lacked that ta-da! magic of bringing a whole, golden-brown bird to the table.  Not every Turkey Day dish has to be gourmet, Ripa insists. Just like her mom, she proudly serves Stove Top stuffing mix, buys a bird with a pop-up thermometer in the breast, and bakes up Pillsbury biscuits, too. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a very health-conscious person; I try to really do what&amp;#039;s right for my kids,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;but I don&amp;#039;t think you can replace the Pillsbury Doughboy.&amp;quot; Ripa sets the table the night before with her good china \u2014 white dishes with a lily motif that her aunt gave her as a wedding present. &amp;quot;I cannot be bothered that morning,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s too much going on.&amp;quot; For the kids, it&amp;#039;s a relaxed time to wear pajamas most of the day and watch the parade on TV. While Lola and Joaquin help in the kitchen, fighting over who gets to lick the bowl, Michael has outgrown that stage. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s 13,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;He likes to eat the food when it&amp;#039;s done, so, you know, call him then.&amp;quot; The next day, Ripa is already pulling out the storage containers with Christmas decorations while serving up leftovers: turkey salad or soup with crispy bread. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s an orzo pasta with turkey. I&amp;#039;ll make a mirepoix stock \u2014 celery, carrot, and onion saut\u00E9ed with a little butter; it&amp;#039;s an Emeril Lagasse thing. I&amp;#039;m very big into taking instructions from professionals.&amp;quot;  Next: Kelly speaks about being grateful &amp;amp;amp; maintaining her marriage  Giving Thanks  Though she has many cute stories to tell about the holiday \u2014 in fact, she has a cute story about almost everything \u2014 Thanksgiving is a special occasion to Ripa that reinforces the importance of family. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a sacred day,&amp;quot; agrees Consuelos. &amp;quot;What our kids gain from it is that we are all together. It&amp;#039;s a comfort to me that no matter what&amp;#039;s going on, we always have each other.&amp;quot;  That reverence for family runs deep. Ripa is thankful to her own parents \u2014 and Consuelos&amp;#039; \u2014 for being good matrimonial role models. &amp;quot;Together our parents have been married for almost 100 years. We&amp;#039;re all swans; we mate for life.&amp;quot; Joseph and Esther Ripa gave her a good foundation, Kelly has said, teaching her that success in life is trying your hardest to be a decent person every day and appreciating whatever blessings you have. She grew up an Adam Ant-loving cheerleader and the eldest of two daughters in a modest home in Berlin, NJ. There was a bit of sibling rivalry, Ripa admits. &amp;quot;My sister and I never fought over boys, only the important things: clothes, the phone, the car, and the hairspray can. I had huge hair. You should see my prom picture. I was a life support system for a hairstyle.&amp;quot;  At 20, she realized her childhood dream of becoming an actress in New York City when she won the role of Hayley Vaughan, a goth teen, on All My Children. Working on a soap opera underscored the importance of showing up on time and prepared, with her day&amp;#039;s lines memorized and ready to hang up her costumes herself. &amp;quot;It teaches you how to be a professional,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t trade the experience for anything ever in my life.&amp;quot; Of course she wouldn&amp;#039;t. In 1995, she got her number one reason to be thankful: a dashing new costar named Mark Consuelos. It was crush at first sight. The &amp;quot;gorgeous, organized, fastidious&amp;quot; romantic who showed up for their dates on time was a welcome antidote to the less mature boys Ripa had been seeing. They married three times on the show, but in real life eloped to Vegas, tying the knot on May 1, 1996.  &amp;quot;People assume that when you get married in Vegas, you go in willy-nilly,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We wanted to get married and start our lives together, and we didn&amp;#039;t take it any less seriously than anybody who has a huge wedding. It&amp;#039;s the marriage that&amp;#039;s important, not the wedding.&amp;quot; Having said that, she adds, &amp;quot;I will kill my daughter if she runs off and elopes, because I want to have a big party.&amp;quot; The thrill of being a newlywed gave way to one of the realities of married life. Ripa has said she and Consuelos fought a lot in the first year, but being able to laugh about it helped. Her husband admits with a chuckle, &amp;quot;I tried to win the arguments at first, but I realized there are just degrees of losing.&amp;quot; To this day, Ripa doesn&amp;#039;t shy away from arguments. She&amp;#039;s seen far too many marriages end in divorce when bottled-up animosity is unleashed. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t be a bottler; you&amp;#039;ll explode,&amp;quot; she advises. &amp;quot;If something bothers me, I just say it, no harm, no foul. So much of marriage is ego-based \u2014 who&amp;#039;s right, who wins the argument. Mark and I don&amp;#039;t really have that.&amp;quot; There is one battle, though, that dogs the couple: &amp;quot;I cannot for the life of me fathom why, every time I walk in the bathroom, the toilet seat is up. Now, instead of saying, &amp;#039;You left the toilet seat up again,&amp;#039; I slam it down. And it makes me feel great,&amp;quot; she confesses with a laugh. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s going to be very upset that I said this to Good Housekeeping!&amp;quot; If laughter gets them through the good and bad times, the most important part of their partnership is how well they look out for each other. &amp;quot;When you marry somebody,&amp;quot; Ripa says, &amp;quot;you really are life partners. What happens to them happens to you. So we feel things very deeply for each other.&amp;quot; She says Consuelos is able to boil things down and talk her through her doubts and what-if, worst-case-scenario thinking. For instance, Consuelos was instrumental in persuading Ripa to join Philbin, a role that initially terrified her. &amp;quot;I give his advice to everyone: &amp;#039;Do not make fear-based decisions, because you will just hinder yourself from being everything that you can be,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I tend to be big on fear-based decisions: &amp;#039;If I do that, what if this happens?&amp;#039; And Mark always says, &amp;#039;What if it doesn&amp;#039;t? Entertain success for a minute.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; This kind of wisdom and support is just one side of their relationship. Their initial attraction still burns hot: During the week, she says, date night with Consuelos is mandatory. &amp;quot;We carve out time for ourselves,&amp;quot; Ripa says. &amp;quot;I think that we&amp;#039;re better parents because date night gives us something to look forward to, a night where we&amp;#039;re not saying, &amp;#039;Put that down, stop touching her, don&amp;#039;t spill that.&amp;#039; Sometimes we&amp;#039;ll put the kids to bed early and watch Jersey Shore on DVR. It can be that simple, just the two of us, alone, one day a week, for dinner and hijinks...a little bump and tickle,&amp;quot; Ripa says, giggling. &amp;quot;Woo-hoo! I&amp;#039;m 40. I can say that now.&amp;quot;  Next: Kelly on Kids, Parenting &amp;amp;amp; Acting Her Age  Kidding Around On the family front, it&amp;#039;s not just her hot husband she&amp;#039;s crazy about. Anyone who&amp;#039;s seen Live! With Regis and Kelly even once knows that Ripa is not shy about expressing her love for her kids, but as they enter the tween and teen years, Ripa is staying strict and vigilant. Michael does not have an e-mail or Facebook account, and he has a cell phone only to let his mom know when it&amp;#039;s time to pick him up at the bus stop. Ripa has said she does not succumb to the peer pressure of what other parents allow their kids to do. &amp;quot;We love them no matter what,&amp;quot; she has often said, &amp;quot;but no means no.&amp;quot; She delights in the kids&amp;#039; differences. Michael, says Ripa, &amp;quot;is the kind of kid who can be in a room full of adults at a cocktail party, but you can also say to him, &amp;#039;Watch your baby cousin in the pool.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Joaquin, her youngest, is &amp;quot;a flirt, a human monkey, a little doll. I pick him up and hold him even though he hangs down to my ankles.&amp;quot; Lola is a classic middle child: &amp;quot;She does not quit at anything. If she wants to learn how to do a backbend, she&amp;#039;s going to do it until it&amp;#039;s dark, until she gets it. We&amp;#039;re very similar. I think that&amp;#039;s why she and I can go at it.&amp;quot; When that happens, Ripa adds with a laugh, it&amp;#039;s a blast from her past. &amp;quot;There are things I swore I would never say, that my parents used to say to me, like, &amp;#039;Don&amp;#039;t get fresh with me, missy.&amp;#039; When that came out of my mouth, I looked behind me, like, Is my mother here?&amp;quot; At home, her kids have chores \u2014 making their beds, clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher \u2014 and earn allowances: $10 a week for Michael, who takes out the recyclables and the trash, and $4 each for Lola and Joaquin. They also get one-on-one time with each of their parents, even if it&amp;#039;s just a trip to the candy store. &amp;quot;It makes a big difference to check in with them,&amp;quot; Ripa says.  Of this parenting stage, Ripa says, &amp;quot;There are things I&amp;#039;m dying to ask Michael, but I don&amp;#039;t want to frighten him away. So you just sort of watch and make yourself available.&amp;quot;  Also keeping the family close: Ripa&amp;#039;s reliance on the religious upbringing she shares with her husband. &amp;quot;We grew up Catholic,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve both found it a stabilizing force, a source of strength and comfort in our lives.&amp;quot; The family goes to church most Sundays, and she notes, &amp;quot;While we don&amp;#039;t always say grace at meals, we do say our prayers every night.&amp;quot; Acting Her Age Given her grounded nature, Ripa&amp;#039;s recent big birthday hasn&amp;#039;t concerned her. She isn&amp;#039;t one to wax nostalgic about her youth: &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t go back and be 20 again if you paid me a million dollars,&amp;quot; she says. She is entering middle age gratefully and gracefully. &amp;quot;I love my grown-up life, I love being with my family, raising my kids; there&amp;#039;s no pressure to meet somebody or look nice or date. I was a terrible dater, so uncomfortable. I&amp;#039;m thankful that I&amp;#039;m out of that game.&amp;quot; Her life, she says, is unfolding in a mysterious but wonderful way: &amp;quot;I know this sounds crazy, but I really feel like everything happens for a reason and I&amp;#039;m going in the direction I&amp;#039;ve been meant to go in my whole life. If I don&amp;#039;t get a job, then it wasn&amp;#039;t my job to get. And if my kids don&amp;#039;t achieve x, y, and z by this day, then that&amp;#039;s not what they were meant to do.&amp;quot; She has learned acceptance, but has not become complacent. At 40, she&amp;#039;s embracing new challenges. She learned to bike again, an activity she&amp;#039;d given up after a nasty childhood accident. Homemade Millionaire, her latest undertaking, is certainly a biggie, but Ripa doesn&amp;#039;t give the impression that adding another TV project to her plate is rocking the boat. How does she know when she&amp;#039;s rocking the boat? &amp;quot;When you fall out, get wet, and have to get back in,&amp;quot; she says. The new show was an idea too close to her heart not to pursue \u2014 helping other women tap their creativity and achieve their dreams, as she has done in her own life.  Asked to look ahead to future big birthdays, Ripa shares goals that are both modest and deeply meaningful and sound remarkably close to what many wish for as they reflect upon their families this season: &amp;quot;I would love to grow old with my husband, and I hope I get to see my kids walk down the aisle and their kids walk down the aisle. We&amp;#039;ll always work hard to make sure those things happen.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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