The Zen of Jen (and Ben)
By Chris Connelly
Photo Credit: Mark Abrahams
With Garner, all conversational roads lead back to the best thing in her life right now: Violet Anne Affleck. "She's pretty awesome," Garner says. We're in that sweet spot before the terrible 2's. She sleeps till 7! Yeah, we lucked out. Supposedly [when] you have one that's this easy and great, you're screwed the next time around."
Garner says she gets to be with the baby during the morning four out of five working days. "Then I put her down for her nap, I run out and have a meeting, I run back. Sometimes I get home before she's even woken up."
It's not hard to imagine the clan expanding someday. "We definitely wonder what it would be like to have another — hopefully, knock on wood, someday," she says, predictably giving the tabletop a rap. "My job is great to have as a mom. I get to take long breaks and then work in a really concentrated way. During that concentrated time, it sucks, but whatever."
The extra pregnancy pounds took some getting used to, especially for someone who had years of rigorous dance training, whose roundhouse kick on Alias was a thing of beauty. "I wasn't a woman who stayed tiny like I thought I would," she says. "I definitely gave myself the freedom to eat what I wanted. I thought, Oh, it's going to drop away; I'll have another cookie. Next time around I won't need to go quite that hog wild. I did not have a huge baby, and I was ginormous!"
Her postpartum figure made a dazzling debut at the 2006 Oscars in a beaded Michael Kors gown with a neckline down to her sternum. According to Garner, such an outing is far from stress-free. "I usually feel like, No matter how many girdles you put me in, you will not be able to zip this. They always say to you — as though it's like something that should make you happy — 'This is fresh off the runway.' But what I think is, That was made for some 14-year-old girl from Russia! It was not made to go on my body."
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