Pros and cons! Deena Nicole Cortese got real about the ups and downs of filming a reality TV show while raising her 10-month-old son, CJ.
“The show is an opportunity for my family,” the Jersey Shore: Family Vacation star, 32, told Us Weekly and other reporters at the E! People’s Choice Awards 2019. “It’s such a headspace. I want to just be with him 24-7, but at the same time this show gives him opportunities and I love being with my roommates. So it’s such a double-edged sword, you know? But at the end of the day, I know the show is good for him and I have to work too. Luckily … I can be mostly a stay at home mom. It just takes me away here and there.”
In fact, when the reality star isn’t filming or attending events, she spends all of her time with her and Christopher Buckner‘s toddler, she told Us, gushing, “I just love being with him.”
The little one is growing up fast, and the MTV personality documented his first steps in a Friday, November 8, Instagram post. “It’s happening,” the New Jersey native captioned the footage. She could be heard from behind the camera, saying, “Come to Mommy. You’ve got this. You’re walking! … Good job. Where are you going? Be careful, honey.”
Cortese, who welcomed her baby boy in January, was feeling “nervous” ahead of this new milestone. “He started balancing by himself and I had to go to film for, like, three days,” she told Us at the PCAs. “I’m like, ‘If this kid walks before I get home, I’m going to just die because I’ve been teaching him.’”
Motherhood has been “harder” than the Couples Therapy alum thought it would be, she admitted shortly after CJ’s birth. “I never understood ppl [sic] telling me while pregnant to get sleep now lol bc [sic] while pregnant I thought I wasn’t getting good sleep,” Cortese revealed on Instagram at the time. “But it’s all so worth it. He’s my little sidekick. We got this.”
She and Buckner, 30, wed in October 2017.
With reporting by Amanda Champagne
