interview with Soleil Moon Frye

When Soleil Moon Frye learned she was pregnant with her first child, she thought she'd be the picture-perfect hippie mom she'd always envisioned. Then Poet, now 6, was diagnosed with a severe case of reflux, and the former Punky Brewster actress learned that parenting is a bit more fly by night than most parenting books would have you believe.

When I spoke with actress, social media maven, and mommy ambassador for Target earlier this year, she gave us a sneak peek of her modern mommy manual, Happy Chaos ($14). While the can't-put-down book is filled with anecdotes about her life on set, her many Hollywood crushes (that children of the '80s will love), and the lessons she learned in six years of motherhood, I spoke with her again about her chaotic life as a mom of two — Poet, 6, and Jagger, 3 — and learning the ropes of parenthood. Like sitting down and dishing with your best friend, Soleil wasn't afraid to talk about the dirty details of life.

On why she wrote the book: "The majority of the parenting books that I read before I became a parent were so much about 'this kind of parent, this is how to do this, this is how to do that.' There was nothing that told me about what was going to happen in the hospital, or that I was going to get that ice pack afterward. Nobody told me about the mesh panties. Nobody told me you could have an accident on the table. So I was like how do we not share this with the sisterhood?"

On her husband, Jason Goldberg's, parenting style: "We are total opposites. He's much more conservative; I'm a free-spirit hippie. But then my daughter, Poet, had really bad reflux, so I'd be up all night, walking her every night. So all of the free-spirit things went out the window, and it made me much more fearful than I thought I would be."

On baby weight: "I'm totally that mom who’s like, 'Oh, I just had a baby — and she's 3 years old!" I use baby for an excuse for everything. My girlfriend's like, "Honey, your baby was born two-and-a-half years ago. I think you need to come up with a new excuse!'"

Keep reading for Soleil Moon Frey's thoughts on adding a second child to the family and her biggest parenting challenge.

Enter Soleil Moon Frey's home and you'd expect to see expertly hung photos and impeccably placed furniture. But according to the actress and mom of two – Poet, 5, Jagger, 3, – that's the furthest thing from reality. The self-proclaimed "messy mom" opened up to me about how her home life inspired the title of her new book and what her girls thing of her time spent as Punky Brewster.

LilSugar: Your upcoming book is called Happy Chaos. Can you define Happy Chaos and what it means to you?
Soleil Moon Frey: It’s the happiness in the chaos. If you go into our home, there are multiple walls that have Sharpie drawings all over them. If you flip our cushions upside down, you’ll find nail polish. If you look at a wall, you’ll find black paint. As the kids are throwing the pancakes up in the air, and they’re throwing the syrup, as they’re tracking paint in the house, it’s all of that chaos and yet they’re the happiest moments of our lives.

LS: Fill in the blanks. You know you're a mother when?
SMF: You walk out of the house with your sweater on inside out and spit-up in your hair.

LS: The best trick my mama taught me is _____?
SMF: To believe in myself. And I could do anything I could set my mind to.

LS: If I could only carry one photo of my children with me, it would be ____?
SMF: That would nearly be impossible! It would be a collage. On my phone I have a collage I made for the girls because I literally couldn’t just pick one. And that is my wallpaper.

LS: I wish someone would have told ____ about motherhood.
SMF: That I would never be perfect.

LS: Have Poet and Jagger seen Punky Brewster? What do they think of it?
SMF: They have caught a few moments here and there; they’ve caught some YouTube. They love it! They really think it’s hysterical. They sit and laugh at me. The other day I had my hair in a ponytail and Poet turned to me and said, "Mom – you look like Punky!"

Has social media become the new village it takes to raise a child? For many mamas, the anonymous world of the Internet has replaced the traditional community our own mothers turned to for advice on bringing up baby.

It's certainly the case for Soleil Moon Frye. The actress, wife, and mom of two, Poet, 5, Jagger, 3, felt lost after giving birth, as if someone had forgotten to hand her the mom manual. She turned to Twitter and Facebook to share her frustrations and ask her questions, quickly building a loyal following of new moms feeling the same way. I spoke with Soleil about the recent phenomenon and how it helped her form the idea for her upcoming book, Happy Chaos. Here are some highlights:

On why she turned to social media in the first place: "I talked to friends about different things and questions I had. But more than anything, I really did feel so lost. And I would literally have been calling my mom and my friends every five seconds. Because I had no clue what was going on."

On what the Internet was providing new moms: "I would go onto blogs and I would see the mom sitting and cutting the vegetables so perfectly. Everything I saw made it look so easy, and I (thought) 'OK am I the only one that finds this so hard? Am I the only one that falls on her face when walking out the door? Or forgets the diaper bag at home? Or has the explosion in the car with the diaper?' These parents are making it look so easy!"

Keep reading to see what kind of response Soleil received online, and how it will fit in her book.