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Tina Fey: Working With Alec Baldwin Trained Me for Parenting Willful 3-Year-Old Daughter

Tina Fey can thank Alec Baldwin later. The This Is Where I Leave You actress, 44, stopped by the Late Show with David Letterman on Friday, Sept. 5, and admitted to the host that working with Baldwin prepared her surprisingly well for motherhood. 

“I feel like I try to use some techniques I learned working with Alec,” Fey said of the parenting strategies she employs with her youngest daughter Penelope, 3. She and husband Jeff Richmond also have an older daughter, Alice, 9.

Related: PHOTOS: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Funniest Moments

“She starts preschool in a couple weeks, which I think is gonna be real interesting,” the funnywoman said of the rambunctious Penelope. “Once I finally got her into preschool, and it was a done deal, I was like, ‘Hey, let me tell you some stuff about her. She is not potty-trained, she’s allergic to nuts, and she bites. So, I gotta go!’ It’s the preschool hat trick! She thinks she’s [potty-trained] so that’s good. She likes to wear underpants, and then it all goes wrong.”

While Fey’s daughter is less-than-successful in her potty-training, she has other major strengths, which even stump Fey.

tina fey and alec baldwin

Related: PHOTOS: Stars' Funniest SNL Moments

“I feel like she’s a very smart little one,” the SNL alum told Letterman. “She just is very willful. We have this little library that we go to in our neighborhood and on Sundays they have a thing where they put out toys. They put out like, a dollhouse, and all these little cars and toys, and she loves it. But, it only goes until like 11:00 a.m. I see the clock ticking and I go, ‘Alright, I gotta start planning how we’re gonna get outta here… how we’re gonna get out of here alive.'”

In order to find a parenting solution, Fey drew inspiration from her 30 Rock days, when she worked with the famously polarizing Baldwin, 56. 

Related: PHOTOS: Funniest Female Stars in Hollywood

“I feel like I try to use some techniques I learned working with Alec,” she admitted. “It’s like, I’m gonna present the idea that we might leave now, but make [her] think it’s her idea. It would work better with Alec than with the baby.”

Fey told Letterman, 67, that she did finally get Penelope out of the library, resorting to scooping up the tot and carrying her out. It was a close call however, as Fey explained that her daughter tried to kick and “destroy” another girl on the way out. See why Penelope said she wanted to “hurt everybody” and “hit and kick every peoples” in the video above!

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