Christina Aguilera Introduces Daughter Summer Rain
Christina Aguilera shares exclusive first photos of her daughter, Summer Rain, and opens up about how motherhood has changed her life. Subscribe now for instant access to these never-before-seen baby pictures, only in PEOPLE!
Christina Aguilera is rarely at a loss for words. But in the moments after her daughter Summer Rain was born on Aug. 16, 2014, she was all but spellbound.
“I was speechless,” the singer, 34, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview for this week’s cover. “She was literally like an angel … We had an immediate calm bond, and I felt unexplainably connected to her and her spirit.”
Since then, she and her fiancé, film producer Matt Rutler, who was by her side for the delivery, have only become more smitten with their little girl, now 6 months old.
“Her smile lights up a room and I know it melts mama and daddy’s hearts,” says Aguilera. “She laughs a ton and is easy to make smile. She just wants to be where the action is!”
Elizabeth Messina
That’s a good thing, considering her mom’s action-packed life.
While Aguilera, who won a Grammy on Sunday for best pop duo/group performance for “Say Something” with A Great Big World, took a break from NBC’s The Voice to focus on her kids — Summer’s big brother is Max Liron, Aguilera’s 7-year-old son with ex-husband Jordan Bratman — she’s back in the coach’s chair for season 8, premiering Feb. 23.
Also in the works? A new album and an upcoming TV series for ABC Family, which she’s producing.
Being a working mother has its challenges, Aguilera admits. “It’s definitely not easy juggling work and motherhood, as being a parent is a full-time job within itself,” she says. “You just have to make it work for you. My life has so many different moving parts, but my kids are the center focal piece, and everything else shifts around them.”
Which is not to say she has this parenting thing all figured out. “It’s hard to know you won’t have all the right answers at the right times. And ‘mom guilt’ is the worst thing ever,” Aguilera explains. “But you have to surrender and let go, knowing you’re doing your very best and no one loves them, or wants what’s best for them more than you.”
Bottom line: Max and Summer will always come first, says Aguilera. “They are the center of my universe.”
Elizabeth Messina
For more of PEOPLE‘s exclusive family photos and Aguilera’s interview, pick up the latest issue of the magazine, on newsstands Friday.
— Elizabeth Leonard