In December's Vogue, Angelina Jolie continues to drop more fascinating details about her children.
First on the list: Four-year-old Shiloh, whom Jolie, 35, says recently discovered a dead bird.
"She came in and said, 'Can I have a dead pet?'" Jolie recalls. "And I'm … 'Uh-uh, I don't think it's healthy, honey. I think they have to put him in a box,' and I had to run out to find, like, a taxidermy bird. I just worked it out for her."
Did Shiloh know about taxidermy?
"No," Jolie says. "But I figured that I couldn't keep the actual dead bird from the yard, so I swayed her toward one that had been cleaned, at least." Jolie said Shiloh is "hilarious."
Say what you want about her daughter; Jolie says she doesn't care. (Before revealing the dead bird story, Jolie told the Vogue writer, "I am sure there's going to be some comment about this, which fortunately I will not read.")
As for Pax (who turns 7 Nov. 29)?
"Sometimes. I'm not the best cook. Pax is a better cook than me," Jolie admits. "Pax likes to cook. But I try to when I can. Any house that we’re in, we all chip in. But the kids are very sweet . . . so enthusiastic anytime I cook."
Especially Maddox, 9.
"He's just this little man that’s very supportive of me — it's like he’s raised me a bit," Jolie says. "So I cooked them all breakfast before school this morning, and he has that kind of 'Thanks, Mom! Good job!'"
Despite her culturally diverse family, Jolie says, “My children are from the countries that I work in. I don't see my family as a global family. I don’t see it separate. So when I look at my kids, and I wake up and hear something’s happening in Pakistan, I think: It's Asians, and my children are from that part of the world. Those kids are very much like my kids. So I'm happy to be able to go."
She and beau Brad Pitt are raising six children together — but Jolie says she never intended on having a large brood.
"I only planned for two!" says the mother of twins. "To each his own. It's one of those things. How you build your family — you have to know what you're capable of handling and how your children will relate to each other. Maybe if you have one child and that child has a lot of needs, you realize you cannot give more attention to another. Sometimes you just know as a parent. We felt we could handle more children, and we have a very happy, very full home."
Her children are all enrolled at the Lycee Français, where much of the curriculum is in French. This fall, UsMagazine.com reported that while she was in Hungary filming her Bosnian movie, Maddox, Pax, Zahara, 5, and Shiloh are attending Budapest's Lycée Français.
The Vogue article says they are "picking up exactly where they left off at the Lycée in L.A."
Vogue hints that is where Jolie likely wants to raise the kids. In France, the family owns a huge chateau.
“Hopefully, they'll go to high school in Aix-en-Provence," Jolie says. "It looks like a great place to be a teenager."
For now, she and Pitt are handling things well, traveling from country-to-country.
"We take turns working. One of us is always at home with the kids — always," says Jolie. "Taking them out to things and being there with them and bringing them to school or to the set to visit Mommy or Daddy."
Pitt, who turns 47 Dec. 18, is "extremely handsome and the most sexy…." Jolie says.
But that's not what turns her on.
"When I think about him, I just think of the man who’s such a great friend and such an extraordinary father," she says. "And that's when I fall, you know, when I have my moments of getting — whoarr! — caught up in how much I love him . . . it's usually when I see him with the children.”
