Splash NewsOn Monday night, Hollywood let out a collective gasp when Jennifer Garner accidentally exposed her Spanx on the red carpet. Women, however, collectively cheered for the actress as she proved, once again, that she's perfectly relatable (after all, when you're juggling three kids and a crazy career is it really a crime if your shapewear shows? Answer: no).
Two days later, she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres show, where she shamelessly dished on her "baby bump," proudly proclaiming, "I have a bump. Its name is Violet, Sam, Sera," (her three children with husband Ben Affleck) while clarifying that no, she is not pregnant, despite the endless rumors, in addition to acknowledging that her stomach does not look the same after giving birth to three kids (and she doesn't feel bad about it, either!).
Talk about a breath of fresh air in Tinseltown! Here are 11 times Jennifer Garner has represented moms everywhere.
Being a Mom and Wife Always Comes First: "I'm still wiping a bottom, making three meals a day, dealing with sass—and also trying to work," she told Instyle for the mag's October 2014 issue. "I don't always do it all well. At bedtime last night my middle child said, 'I feel like you never have time to play with me.' I thought, 'My mom never played with me. I'm trying! But you know what? She's right. So my goal is to play dolls with her all afternoon. I guess I would say for this stage of my life, I'm in the thick of it."
She May Be America's Best-Dressed Mom, But She Insists She's No Fashion Expert: "I can't imagine that anyone in the world would come to me for style advice!" she said in the same interview. "If you want to talk about making the perfect pizza crust or how to handle a toddler who won't sleep or potty-train, then we can chat."
On What She Would Do If She Were Ever to Rip Her Red Carpet Dress: "Laugh—and reach for my boobs!" she told the publication.
She Understands That Being a Mom Requires Major Multi-Tasking: "Honestly, between us, playing dolls sometimes, it's very easy to keep up your end of dolls and have your phone open and next to you," Garner dished to E! News at the premiere of her new movie Men, Women & Children. "But I'm trying not to do that. You can have a tea party and returning emails—trust me," she added, "But I'm trying not to do it."
She Helps Nurture Husband Ben Affleck's Relationship With Their Three Children: "I keep things rolling and foster his connection to the kids. He'll always make time for them—he screwed up a week of production to take our daughter to her first day of kindergarten—but there's only so much, practically speaking, that he can do," she previously told InStyle. "I make sure that I am facilitating the most meaning for each kid out of whatever time he has."
Maintaining a Pin-Thin Frame Is Not Her Top Priority: "There's something about it: Whenever one of us has to be really good, the other one pudges up," Garner said in an interview with Ryan Seacrest, blaming her weight gain on Ben Affleck's strict diet for Batman. "I don't know why it is. But I blame my pudginess on his strict and disciplined place in life. There's something about it that just makes me like, ‘Well, I'm going to have a Bon Bon. I'm going to have ice cream.'"
And She's More Than Happy to Admit that Her Post-Baby Bod Will Never Be the Same: "I get congratulated all the time by people that I know, saying, 'I hear you're pregnant!' You know, this one woman who had babysat for us said, 'OMG! I can't wait for baby No. 4!' and I thought, 'What is going on?' So I asked around and apparently I have a baby bump. And I'm here to tell you that I do—I do!" the actress told Ellen DeGeneres as the audience erupted with applause. "Hold up. Hold right up! I am not pregnant, but I have had three kids and there is a bump. From now on ladies, I will have a bump. And it will be my baby bump. And let's just all settle in and get used to it."
She Knows She Doesn't Have All the Answers: "It's all such a constant conversation, isn't it?" Garner told E! News last month when asked how to decide when it's appropriate for kids to start using technology. "I think we're all as a society figuring out what's appropriate. I mean, we can't keep in front of what our kids are learning or seeing or using, technology-wise. It's happening before we can even...We're all running to catch up, us stupid grown-ups! Thank goodness my kids are little enough that they're far from having phones or iPads or anything."
She Will Go to Great Lengths to Protect Her Children: "We had looked at all different things, moving out of California, you know all manners of things," the 41-year-old actress said on Today, revealing she considered leaving the state if the anti-paparazzi bill, which increases the possible punishment for harassing celebrity kids, did not pass. "I think that there's an idea that because our pictures are everywhere that we're complicit in it, when really what happens is they're waiting outside our door every single day. I can't go to the mailbox without getting my picture taken, so I don't."
And in case you needed more convincing, we're not the only ones singing Garner's praises.
"She is the type of person born to be a mother," Kerris Dorsey, who plays one of Garner and Steve Carell's three children in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, told E! News at the film's premiere. "She's so maternal and so lovely. She has that instinct. She kind of felt like a real mom. She really cared about everyone individually. It feels like she cares about you personally."
Way to keep it real, Garner. And for the record, we adore your "baby bump."