HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — While she spent part of her summer shooting a new movie in Los Angeles, Jennifer Garner is usually running around town as a busy mother of two.
"Getting the kids up and fed, getting one to school, getting the other down for a nap, going to the grocery store, picking one up from school, getting the other one down for another nap, cooking dinner," the 37-year-old actress tells W magazine of her hectic schedule. "I live my life at these two extremes. I'm either a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time actress."
Garner, who has two daughters — Violet, 4, and Seraphina, 11 months — with husband Ben Affleck, says there are still days when she wishes Hollywood hadn't come calling and she could have followed her dreams of a medical career.
"When my daughter has a fever, I want to be able to look in her ears myself and not have to call someone," she says. "I want to be able to tell, is that spot on her leg ringworm or a dry patch?"
Garner shot the romantic comedy Valentine's Day over the summer, but don't expect her to work with her hubby, now a promising director, anytime soon.
"I think he's brilliant at what he does, but why rock the boat?" she tells the mag. "It works between us pretty well the way it is. I don't know if I want to go to work with him. I'd be like, 'Okay already, you got the shot. Let’s go home!' "
Garner and Affleck do their best to guard their privacy, but the former Alias star admits her husband of fours years almost does it too easily at times.
"Ben asks me, 'How come when I do an interview I manage to keep you out of it completely?' " she explains. "And I'm like, 'Either because you don't think about me or because boy magazines don't care about what I make you for dinner. But they should!' "
Garner seems to be enjoying every minute of motherhood, referring to breast-feeding as "the coziest feeling in the whole world." She also makes her own homemade baby food, although she confesses that is "a little over the top."
"I tell myself, just give her a jar of food and forget about it! Don't be so precious! But it's so easy—I just puree and freeze," she says.
Garner also loves the moments when she gets to bond with the other mothers at Violet's school.
"You feel so close to them so quickly because you're going through the same thing," she confesses.
Bradley Cooper, her starred alongside Garner on Alias, says his longtime friend was always destined to be an amazing mother.
"She was one of the first people I met when I stepped onto Los Angeles soil," he recalls. "And she was very maternal, even then. She wanted to take care of me, make sure I was okay all the time. The first time I saw her, I was in the production office when we were shooting the pilot, and this girl comes in, glowing. She had just baked cookies, which she was offering to me, and I was like, That is who's playing Sydney Bristow?"
Also see: Jennifer Garner Pictures
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