Celebrity mom Ali Landry installs a mean car seat… and rips off a gas pump.

Ha! Title made you look, didn’t it? That’s what you call a sneaky tease to get you to read. More on the gas pump fail thing later. First? We’ve got serious safety issues to talk about. Starting with…

Ali Landry. Seeing her name, I used to think: 1) Doritos, 2) Unbelievably gorgeous hair, 3) The first ‘Hollywood’ person whose home I first spilled the beans about being pregnant with my first daughter. (A long story about once being invited to and attending a beauty product party at Ali’s home — through a mutual friend, during a time when I was still hiding my 4-month pregnancy on account of work — and then finding myself in conversation with a small group of recognizable celebrity moms discussing how motherhood was going to change my life and how it was *okay* if I wanted to sip Diet Coke once in a while during pregnancy.) True story.

But now when I see Ali Landry’s name? I think: 1) Mommy, 2) Unbelievably gorgeous hair (hello, it still is), 3) Woman Who Knows How To Rip Off A Gas Pump (more on that later). Oh yeah, and 4) Safety Power Mom.

GRAB YOUR TICKETS TO 2017’S CELEBRITY RED CARPET SAFETY EVENT HERE!

Celebrity moms inspire me. Anyone who can manage to look fabulous, smile, be sweet to fans and be ‘on’ while working on camera, while they’re secretly worrying about whether their kids got home from school okay and if they still have a running nose from when they woke up in the morning, is a fascinating thing. Because – as I want to make it very clear – entertainment is not all glitz and glam. True, celebrity moms have resources that most of us don’t have outright access to, but guess what: THEY’RE STILL MOMS.

They still question their choices. They still mess up. They still have off-the-wall things happen to them involving nursing babies and gas pumps (keep reading, folks).

Ali Landry is an actress, TV personality and mom of three kiddos under the age of 8. She’s on TV, online and all over business. She’s the co-founder of new Favored.by app which helps parents find the best baby and child products via trusted friends. Ali’s also an advocate for baby and child safety – the girl even got certified by Safe Kids to be a carseat technician. (Who knew such a knockout from that epic 1998 Doritos commercial would morph into one amazing tough mother…)

After hounding her for an interview (also a true story) we got to chat… Here’s all the *unedited* stuff (seriously, I didn’t bother editing because it’s all fabulous info):

You’re hosting the 4th annual Red CARpet Safety Event happening in Los Angeles (get your tickets now!), to educate us crazy parents about proper carseat, home & on-the-go safety for families. Why so passionate about it?

I once learned that 3 out of 4 carseats are installed incorrectly… that number is insane! When I found that out, I then did a carseat check at my daughter’s preschool. We checked 42 seats and only 2 were installed correctly. And, those 2 seats that were installed correctly were in the same person’s vehicle, because that father educated himself how to do it properly. Then, when I went to become a carseat technician I found out that my own carseat was installed incorrectly. Turns out, I was not using the top tether and I was using 2 latch systems (when you’re only supposed to to use one). I always thought: the more latches, the more safe… which is not the case. I had everything wrong. It was scary.

Speaking of scary, what was your biggest fear about becoming a mom… before you actually became a mom?

Biggest fear happened when I was pregnant. I was fearful of not being able to nurse my children – I really wanted that bond to be experienced with them and I carried a lot of fear around that. Looking back, I don’t think I was completely educated about it. When I started to nurse I didn’t realize there was this extreme pain… and the more I read, the more I learned that was normal. Once you pass over that hump it’s smooth sailing. I just encourage women to educate themselves about breastfeeding if it is something you want to do.

Biggest [funny] fail as a new mom?

Oh yes I remember this one. My husband, myself and my first baby Estella were at the gas station and I was outside pumping gas. She started to cry in her seat, so I just got in the car and leaned over her [to nurse] because I didn’t want to take her out of the seat [since we’d be heading out soon]. My husband got in the driver’s seat, assumed we were done pumping gas and then turned the car on and pulled away from the pump… with the pump still attached to our car!  We went back to the station to return the ripped-off pump and our $100 gas cost turned into about a $1000 bill for the broken pump. Yeah. I felt so bad.

(If it helps you at all Ali, I once found myself at the grocery checkout with two screaming toddlers, a beyond-full cart and NO WALLET in my purse…. fun.)

Best trick that helped you bounce back into life, focus and business after pregnancy?

What happens with me is that I hear of a great thing and I want to try it. Yes, I lathered my body 24 hours a day in Palmer’s Cocoa Butter.* The key is to stay lathered up, all over your body, at all times… as much as you can. I also drank a ton a water, tried acupuncture and flower essences for baby blues… I even did the placenta encapsulation. I literally would’ve fried it up [the placenta] in a pan if you told me that was the best way to do it. I also exercised up until the day before delivery – I was able to change to pool workouts with my trainer beforehand. It’s not like I was expecting the scale to suddenly swing the other way, it just made me feel so much better. Women need to be realistic and give ourselves a break. I really believe it takes 9 months to put it on and 9 months to take it off.

So you like to take advice and try suggestions… is this what led you to co-create Favored.by app?

Yes! After I had my daughter, I was about to make all these high ticket purchases. I knew I wanted to have more kids [after her] so I also wanted those items to last though all future children. I also wanted to make sure I knew what the best products were from people I trusted. I practically spent all of my pregnancy online… I’d read the manufacturer reviews and then I’d read the moms’ reviews. But, when I saw moms’ reviews I also wanted to know if they had the same lifestyle as me: living in LA, etc. That’s what Favored.by’s all about: Which products your friends, family and like-minded people favored the most. I like to say I created it selfishly because it was a tool I needed most desperately in my own life.

And I desperately sometimes NEED Doritos. The Nacho Cheese kind. (You think I’m kidding?) Do your kids love Doritos too?

[Ali laughs.] They do love Doritos. But my kids have never seen the commercial – they don’t even know about it. I have this idea to video my daughter (she’s 8 now) watching the things I’ve done. Now that she’s at the age where’s she into handstands and tricks, I think she’d love it and be most amused because she’s not going to believe I used to do the splits. [FACT: Ali did splits in one of the Doritos spots.] I think she’ll have fun watching that.

So, I say we all storm the 4th Annual Red CARpet Safety Event, Favored.by apps cued up and chant and demand that Ali do the splits. On stage. While installing a car seat. While we crunch Doritos. How’s that for fabulous celebrity mom magic? (Told you I was a fan…)

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The 4th ANNUAL RED CARPET SAFETY EVENT is a fun filled, educational, inspiring and engaging event for parents and kids. The event aims to spread awareness about Car Seat Safety as well as other areas of safety that affect parents and their precious loved ones… complete with informational tutorials with experts and fabulous giveaways. To attend the Los Angeles event on September 19, 2015, get your tickets HERE. Follow along on Twitter #RedCARpetSafety

For immediate information about child safety practices, tips and instructions, visit Safe Kids.

*DISCLOSURE: For the record, Ali is a compensated spokesperson for Palmer’s Cocoa Butter. However, she did spill that she’d be talking about the benefits of ‘lathering up’ during pregnancy regardless of her compensation… because it WORKS. I’ll back her up: IT WORKS.