Britney Returns

Of all the things Britney has lost in the past year, it's the custody of her sons, Sean Preston, 3, and Jayden, 2, that has shaken her hardest. "Every time they come to visit me, I think about how they're such special people," says Spears, who currently sees the boys three days a week, with one overnight stay. "Like, they're going to preschool now! I went there to pick them up on Friday, and seeing them in their little classroom and seeing Jayden being bad or not listening? It's like, those are mine, and it's just crazy, you know what I mean? And the things that are coming out of their mouths right now — they're learning so much, and it's new, and you never know what they're going to say, and they're so smart yet so innocent. They're obsessed with monsters, and every night we look outside, and we have to show them that there's no monsters out there. It's dark outside, but there's nothin' out there, you know?"

Ever since she was a little girl growing up in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears dreamed of having her own children. She considered the experience "the closest thing to God," she said in 2004 in a note on her fan site. "To be a really good mom, I feel your child needs to be your full-time job. I want to raise my kids and share all of those precious moments with them."

But things haven't turned out like she imagined. "I didn't think my husband was gonna leave me," she says, deadpan. She laughs to break the tension. "Otherwise, I'd be with my babies 24/7. But since they're almost like twins, they both take care of each other. I think they look like me," she says, going from affectionate to bitter as she gets distracted by thoughts of Federline, whom she sees only when one of them is picking up the boys. "They don't look like their father at all," she continues. "And it's weird 'cause they're starting to learn words like 'stupid,' and Preston says the f-word now sometimes. He doesn't get it from us. He must get it from his daddy. I say it, but not around my kids."

Of course, Britney hasn't quite turned out to be a model parent, either, and it was her own erratic behavior that led to her losing custody. During Britney's second trip to the psych ward, when her dad, Jamie, wanted to convince her to let him take control of her life, he told her he would help her get her babies back. He and attorney Andrew Wallet filed for a legal conservatorship that makes them responsible for overseeing her finances and her personal life — Britney today has about as many legal rights as when she was in the Mickey Mouse Club. She is watched over day and night by security guards Jamie hired (and she's paying for); it's also rumored that Britney's phone calls are closely monitored and that she's not allowed to drive her own Mercedes. Recently, says one source with ties to the Britney camp, Jamie fired a guard who let the singer use his phone. (Her rep denies the claim.)