When it comes to motherhood, Busy Philipps certainly knows how she does it: The actress has learned it’s all about rolling with the punches.

“Becoming a mom allowed me to just relax in a way I never had before,” the I Don’t Know How She Does It star, 32, tells Parenting.

“I used to care a lot about what I looked like in public or what people thought of me. I care at least 40 percent less now.”

The sudden change behind Philipps’ perspective on life came following the birth of her now 3-year-old daughter Birdie Leigh.

“I want Bird to see her mom as a woman who is confident and real; not someone who’s always trying too hard,” she says.

“I still like to dress up and get fancy from time to time, but it’s okay to be sweaty and without makeup at the grocery store … The bigger part, to me, is being Birdie’s mom, Marc [Silverstein's] wife, and how I’ve worked very hard to grow the past 10 or so years.”

Working hard is something Philipps knows all too well; She admits her downfall is often her inability to resist favor requests from friends.

“I think learning to say no is very important, however I have not mastered that yet,” she says. “I, in fact, feel like I say yes to everything — making cakes for other kids’ birthdays, doing improv shows at midnight, stranger’s podcast … the list goes on.”

However, the number one spot on her to-do list is one pastime Philipps can’t get enough of: Spending time with Birdie.

“Birdie is always my first priority and I cherish the time we spend together … I try to schedule work things around that,” she shares. “You know, like, ‘Yes, I’ll do your podcast, but only after 8 p.m.’”

But when the juggling act gets to be too much for the Cougar Town star to handle, Philipps relies on a good dose of laughter to tackle the challenges.

“I think that very early on I realized that if I couldn’t come at this parenting thing with humor, I would not only lose my mind, but probably my marriage as well,” she notes.

“I took great comfort in something I read in a Dr. Sears book which basically said to remember that the difficult moments will pass, and then at some point, you’ll long for the days when your child wanted nothing but to be held by you or rocked to sleep or breastfed for 10 hours straight.”

Until that day comes, however, Philipps is making it a point to savor each second with her family.

“The fact is, maybe because I’m lucky enough to have a job that affords me the luxury of sometimes being a stay-at-home mom and sometimes working full time, I’m able to appreciate both sides so completely,” she says.

“This early childhood time is so fleeting and before you know it, you’ve got some huge person living with you. I think the chances of liking your kids as they grow into adults, and I mean really liking, not loving, has a lot to do with this early time in their lives.”

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I have just added 70 HQ and MQ photos of Busy Philipps from the recent events she attended.

Busy Philipps has revealed that she would love Taye Diggs to guest star on Cougar Town.

Laurie, Philipps’s character in the ABC comedy, is a big fan of the Private Practice star and the actress explained that she would enjoy working with him.

“I would love Taye Diggs [to come on the show],” she told E! Online. “I would love it. I love that my character is obsessed with him.”

Philipps continued: “I keep trying to pitch it. I’m like, ‘Look, he’s on an ABC show – he can do a couple episodes!’ And the joke could be that my character has always loved Taye Diggs and this could just be a random guy that looks a lot like Taye Diggs.”

Diggs said last year that he is a “fan of the show” and “would love” to have a cameo at some point.

Susan Blakely and Sarah Chalke recently signed up for roles in Cougar Town, which returns in midseason on ABC.

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I have just added another 36 HQ and MQ photos of Busy Philipps from the Point Honor Gala that was held in Los Angeles last night!

Earlier today, Busy Philipps took part in the Walk For Lupus Now in Los Angeles. I have just added 10 photos of Busy at the event into our photo gallery. Then later tonight, Busy was photographed at the Point Honor Gala and I have just added 14 photos from the event!

Last night, Busy Philipps attended two new events in Los Angeles. She was at the The Launch Of The Alexa Chung For Madewell and the Lucky Brand New Movement In Denim event. I have just added 52 HQ and MQ photos of Busy from both events into our photo gallery!

It’s ten o’clock AM and Busy Philipps is having a life-imitates-art moment. As Philipps describes trying to cram an entire workday into the brief window when her three-year-old daughter is at school, her real-life lament could easily double as dialogue in the script for her most recent project, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” which stars Sarah Jessica Parker as a woefully overextended working mom.

Another way to look at it is that Busy is just living up to her name. Best known for her role as the terminally single woman pining after Justin Long’s bartender in “He’s Just Not That Into You,“ Philipps has made a habit of working on zeitgeist-y projects aiming to capture the most of-the-moment female archetypes: TV’s “Cougar Town” and ”I don’t Know How She Does It.”

In the latter, which is based on the bestselling novel by Allison Pearson, Philipps plays a Type-A supermom who organizes school bake sales as if she were running a Fortune 500 company and acts as a foil to Sarah Jessica Parker’s frazzled working mom struggling to stay afloat at work and at home. Philipps identified strongly with the film’s premise — that the feminist-era fairy tale that women can have it all hasn’t exactly panned out as promised.

Over the course of a lively conversation, Philipps opens up about her own experiences — in life and on screen — of trying to solve the eternal maternal riddle of how to survive motherhood with a career and vice versa.

Word & Film: What aspect of the story resonated most with you?

Busy Philipps: It’s difficult learning to balance and my life has certainly been a trial by fire. I’ve messed up every day for the past three years since I had my daughter, and especially in the past two years since I started working. So every day I figure out how to do it better the next day. I definitely loved the script, especially since I had personally had experiences with mean judgmental non-working moms. So I was excited to play my character.

W&F: Give us some insights into your character.

BP: I play a woman named Wendy Best, who puts this mirror up to Sarah Jessica Parker’s character and illuminates the worst things she feels about herself as a mother. Which is a horrible feeling. It’s that weird thing that happens where women become very judgmental of decisions other women are making. It’s sad to me we can’t be in a place where we can acknowledge we’re all doing our best and respect the decisions other women make and even offer to help out.

W&F: Was it fun or interesting to play one of those perfectionist supermoms?

BP: I’m just so not that woman. I certainly know women who had children, quit their jobs, and still have full-time nannies. That’s who these women are: Even to the detriment of their own relationship with their kids, they want to appear perfect Martha Stewart moms.

W&F: You could probably make a whole comedy about what it’s like to be that kind of mother.

BP: It’s hard to find the balance and find time and that’s what I love about this movie: Sarah Jessica Parker’s pulled in all these different directions and she’s trying to hold together a relationship with a man that’s maybe not the most exciting thing. Maybe Pierce Brosnan is a little more exciting but only because he’s new and shiny. It’s hard to find a way to be good to your husband, be good to your kid, and be good to yourself.

W&F: Was it refreshing to take an alternative approach to a traditional rom-com narrative, in which a woman’s sole obsession is to find the right guy and get married?

BP: This was certainly a lot of fun. Aline Brosch McKenna is one of my favorite writers, with all due respect to my husband (Marc Silverstein) who makes a living writing romantic comedies. But to be able to tell this story, which is a romantic comedy but from a different perspective, was really fun. We were also given a lot of room in the interview portion in which Aline and director Doug McGrath and occasionally Harvey Weinstein would interview us on camera about the character’s point of view on certain subjects. Some of it was written out and other stuff was freestyle improv. You don’t really get that experience much on these comedies. That stuff ended up in the movie as the segments when the characters speak to the camera.

W&F: I imagine this was a very family-friendly set. Did you bring your kids to work?

BP: The movie was filming in New York and I shoot a show in Los Angeles, so for me it wasn’t even worth it to bring my kids because it would have messed up their sleeping schedule. It was also cold and flu season so I don’t think Sarah Jessica was bringing her kids around because you just don’t want your kids to be exposed to that.

W&F: Did you two commiserate about your own struggles to balance work and life?

BP: Definitely. I shared with her how I only worked a couple days during the first year of my daughter’s life. I shot the pilot for “Cougar Town” and then it got picked up and I started to shoot the series after her first birthday. I had been part of a mommy playgroup for the first year of her life and then I was working so much on the show, I stopped getting the e-mails and stopped being included in the group. TV shows only shoot seven months out of the year, so I had this moment when the show was done shooting when I felt so alone. Then I sent out this big mea culpa e-mail saying, “I know I let the ball drop and I was overwhelmed with the show. But I’d really like to get back into things.” And really only three of the fifteen women e-mailed me back. I had a really hard time. I had to go to therapy. I was really devastated by it. I felt incredibly hurt. Like, ‘You’re mad at me for working. Don’t take it out on my kid.’ I guess I missed all those months of important bonding.You have to be able to talk to other mothers. It is so vital. Just so you know you’re not crazy. The short version of the story is: I got kicked out of my playgroup. But it was about so much more than that.

W&F: “Cougar Town” has a whole different take on what it means to be a mom and have a social life.

BP: Absolutely! On our show Christa Miller and Courteney Cox are both moms. Christa Miller’s viewpoint is hilarious: She’s a stay-at-home mom who gave up her career and has a nanny and drinks wine all the time.

W&F: The wine is just basic survival.

BP: You got that right!

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