Everything 'Mother of Three' Kerry Washington Has Said About Being a Parent

During a Monday appearance on the Today show to promote her new Broadway play American Son, Kerry Washington corrected Craig Melvin when he referred to her as "a mother of two."

"I am a mother of three," said the 41-year-old actress, who shares son Caleb Kelechi, 2, and daughter Isabelle Amarachi, 4½, with husband Nnamdi Asomugha.

While the statement led many fans to do a double-take, the Scandal star is a stepmom to Asomugha's 12-year-old daughter from a previous relationship prior to his marriage to Washington.

"I feel empowered when I'm making time to take care of myself," Washington told PEOPLE in April of juggling parenting, work and self-care, admitting "it's a little bit of a challenge" to find the time but she has found a trick to making it happen.

"I think of it as kind of like my weekly scavenger hunt, figuring out where's the me time," the working mom explained. "I put it on my list of priorities."

The Django Unchained actress also told PEOPLE in April that it's important for her kids to understand one big lesson about beauty.

"What I want my children to understand about beauty is that inner beauty is always more important than what's on the outside," she said.

Washington previously dabbled in the world of nail polish, taking on the role of OPI Creative Ambassador and collaborating with the brand on a Washington D.C.-themed nail lacquer collection. She even named one of the shades, "Inside the ISABELLEtway," after her daughter!

And while the star is dedicated to teaching her children the importance of inner beauty, it doesn't mean Isabelle hasn't already developed a penchant for makeup — well, at least for the tools involved.

"I haven't painted her nails. But she's around it a lot, I mean if she's with me at work," Washington told PEOPLE of Isabelle in August 2016. "She hangs out in the hair and makeup trailer a lot. She loves a good fan brush because it feels so fun."

In January 2017 — three months after welcoming son Caleb — the mother of two said, "I haven't been drinking a lot of wine because I've been with child and nursing," admitting, "I'm not really into the pump and dump."

"I can be covered in spit-up on a conference call while I'm pumping and that's okay, because this is my perfect," Washington told Net-A-Porter's magazine The Edit in May 2017, while breastfeeding Caleb during the interview.

Added the actress, "It may not be somebody else's, but this is mine."

"My doctor made me take my six weeks off, and I did," Washington told PEOPLE in March 2017 about not feeling in a huge rush to get back to the gym after giving birth to her son. "It was really important to me to have that downtime and then start working out slowly, which I'm still doing, I am still slowly getting back into it."

"It was rumored somewhere that I was working out a week or two after he was born and it really upset me, actually," she continued. "I never talk about rumors in the media, but I was really sad that somebody printed that because I felt like, 'Oh, that makes women feel like they have to start working out' — like, 'Oh celebrities work out right away.' And I was like, 'No way!' "

Of hitting the red carpet glowing just nine weeks after Caleb's birth, Washington told PEOPLE it's just part of her job.

"I think you just show up," the Emmy-nominated actress said. "It's not like, 'I've somehow achieved some level of perfection, and I'm ready to go back out in the world.' "

"Sometimes it's about not letting my own concerns about what I may or may not look like get in the way of a bigger responsibility to the work that I do," she explained.

"She's great, she's enjoying it," Washington told Extra in January 2016 of how Isabelle was adjusting to being a big sister.

She added of former NFL cornerback Asumugha, "I'm an only child, but my husband has many siblings, so he can walk her through it."

Washington's "best role" to date? As the star joked to Extra, "It's the best acting of my life right here, the well-rested woman."