Jessica Simpson, Levi Johnston: bikinis, guns, and babies … oh my

Jessica Simpson dresses her infant in a yellow bikini, Levi Johnston follows through on naming his baby, Breeze Beretta, after a gun. And one "regular" mom, pregnant with her second child, sighs in relief that she's not dealing with a babe célèbre.

Thank goodness for the Levi Johnston baby and Jessica Simpson’s baby bikini picture. Even Nick Lachey is helping me out today.

Because I’ll admit it: with baby No. 2 on the way, we’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed at my house. Not that we’re not excited. Really.

It’s just that....  I kind of used up all the parental planning with Baby M. Now we’re just tired. (Sorry, second children out there.) So do we have a name picked out? Cute little outfits in the closet? An idea of where this kid will sleep?  Nope, nope, more nope.

So you can imagine my relief when I checked the news today and found guidance in the celebrity world.

First up, Levi Johnston, the Alaskan who might possibly have been the most relieved man in the country about Sara Palin’s 2008 vice presidential loss.

Remember, Mr. Johnston and Palin daughter Bristol were an item when it became known to the voting public that the unmarried Bristol was pregnant.  The two youngsters appeared in many a campaign portrait, talking about how they had decided to keep the baby and get married. But then Palin and then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain lost, Bristol and Levi split, Bristol had son Tripp, and Bristol started a reality show.  Or something like that.

Then it became known that Johnston had a new pregnant girlfriend, Sunny Oglesby. (He said he “actually loved” this one.  Nice.) And today, we hear that the couples’ new baby girl has arrived into the world and – as promised – she is named after a gun. Awesome, right? Breeze Beretta is the name. (Beretta is the gun part, for all you other pacifist North Easterners out there.)

I e-mailed Husband immediately.  Look, I wrote, we’re not stuck with the celebrity names of Apple or Shiloh!  

He has ignored me.

But what to do with outfits? Or lack thereof? Here is where one of our favorite pregnant-turned-mama celebrities comes in. Just when you thought the critiques of Jessica Simpson’s procreating body were at an end, now we get a Simpson baby picture that has sparked new controversy.

See, during an interview with Katie Couric, Ms. Simpson apparently showed a baby picture of her little daughter, Maxwell, who happened to be wearing a yellow bikini. The onlookers were appalled. Cute? No!  Outrageous!  Who puts a baby in a bikini? They asked.

Everything that is wrong with the sexualization of young girls and inappropriate clothing is wrapped up into this one Simpson baby picture, if you go by the reaction. The yellow bikini, they said, was even worse than that bikini onesie of which we’ve heard so much.

Hey, I’m impressed that the woman gets clothes on the baby at all. At our house we’re having a shirt strike. Whatever, I figure, the weather is still warm.

But at least I have some fashion ideas for Baby 2. 

And then, of course, there’s the new Nick Lachey baby. In case you hadn’t heard, singer Lachey and his wife Vanessa Lachey had their first child yesterday.

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(Connection, for those of you who try to ignore all this sort of thing:  Mr. Lachey is the ex-husband of Jessica Simpson. Coincidence? Hmmmmm.)

The name is Camden John Lachey. 

There’s not a whole lot to say about that one, really.  Just that it turns out that people have babies every day, even the rich and famous people. And somehow, they make it all work. Ish.

Which, I’ve decided, is my celebrity takeaway for the moment: I can simply stay in pregnancy denial for another few months. 

Happy Beretta-Maxwell-Camden Day.