Oct. 22, 2007

See that shell-shocked look on Jayden James' chubby-cheeked little face? We're guessing it's not from the flashbulbs exploding around him. Or the boredom that comes from watching mom Britney Spears slurp yet another high-caloric caffeinated beverage from Starbucks. Or dismay over driving past playground after playground without stopping.

No, that dazed and confused expression is likely from fear -- fear that mommy's suddenly swollen lips will puff to the point where they'll suck up everything in their path, whether Frappuccino-based or not.

With the court still unconvinced of the pigheaded, photo-op-courting popster's maternal mettle (but willing to give her the benefit of the doubt by restoring visitation privileges), she apparently decided to take a cue from someone whose parenting skills are universally praised -- plumping up her lips a la supermom Angelina Jolie.

Spears debuted her bee-stung-bordering-on-anaphylactic-shock kisser on Friday, when she was caught driving away from a Beverly Hills, Calif., medical building (per TMZ.com) with one hand over her mouth and the other steering her plastic-pumpkin-bedecked white Mercedes through a throng of paparazzi, one of whom failed to get his sandal-and-sock-clad foot out of the way of her wheels.

"Brit hoped her new lips would improve her look without being really obvious to anyone," a source tells the London Daily Mail. "But onlookers literally stood [open]-mouthed when they saw her. She looked freaky."

That might be a bit of an exaggeration in the land where Lisa Rinna-esque fish maws run amok, although an insider decidedly understates to People that she only "enhanced them a tad."

While the initial eye-popping fleshiness receded fairly quickly (aided perhaps by the icy confections she inhales like oxygen), Spears kept her pucker obscured on Sunday while waiting behind the wheel of her perma-shutterbug-surrounded convertible (top down, of course) as hanger-on Sam Lufti fetched -- oh, you'll never guess -- more Starbucks.

Britney's hand-over-mouth pose didn't stop her from answering questions lobbed by lensmen, including what Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden, 1, would be dressing up as for Halloween ("probably pumpkins") and when her next single is due (she says the song "Someone" will be released in December, although there's no track by that name on her about-to-drop "Blackout" album).

(By the by, the New York Daily News has already reviewed the CD, calling it "fun" in a totally fake and overprocessed kind of way: "On many tracks, Britney sounds so worked over, she doesn't even seem like a person ... If a blowup sex doll could sing, this is what she'd sound like. In terms of studio trickery, Paris Hilton's album was practically 'Unplugged' compared to this.")

Anyhoo, a few hours after the coffee run, Spears, decked out in pink short-shorts and matching snow boots, was once again in pursuit of frosty goodness, this time impatiently hitting Cold Stone Creamery with Lufti.

"Britney kept asking the worker to 'hurry up' and said that [the] Cake Batter [flavor] was her favorite," a snitch tells Us.

As for Spears' quality time with her sons on Saturday, that came just three days after the judge again suspended her visitation rights, an order TMZ says was handed down because she failed to provide correct contact information to the lab charged with her random drug testing, purportedly giving them the number of an ex-assistant.

But Britney wasn't alone during her Starbucks run with her rug rats. Riding shotgun was an older woman believed to be a court-appointed monitor. Us reports that after she got her fill of frozen coffee, Spears spent a "quiet" night at home in Malibu with her sons, who were picked up Sunday morning by Kevin Federline's bodyguard.

Speaking of court-appointed peeps, did the self-destructing starlet blow off her parenting coach? According to TMZ, Brit was a no-show for a scheduled meeting on Thursday in Malibu with the tot tutor, who supposedly called the judge last week and asked to be relieved of the home visit duty.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has the particulars on the Malibu digs the Britster has been living in since unloading the sprawling nearby compound she once shared with Federline.

She reportedly signed a six-month lease on the seven-bedroom, 8,500-square-foot French-style estate with "towering trees and park-like grounds," a media room, pool, spa and ocean and mountain views, none of which seems as appealing to her as cruising around aimlessly with a posse of paparazzi in pursuit.

The paper says that when the lease agreement ends, Spears has the option to buy the palatial property, which is listed at a little more than $9 million.

As for the custody wrangling, Britney is due back in court on Friday, and if her attitude toward the judicial system is anything like it was last week, she may be expecting the star treatment. TMZ reports she was overheard in the elevator after her hearing wondering why the judge didn't "lock down the building for me."

She might be wise to plug her piehole with one of those mini-pumpkins on her dash, because Us Weekly also heard her carelessly yapping during a post-court shopping spree, when which she supposedly labeled the judge "an old fart" who was "soooo mean" and gave her "no respect at all."

Spears, however, still has her defenders -- phone-throwing and crankypants-wearing though they may be.

"I don't know her music, but we're all sitting back and watching this group of people. Insane," Russell Crowe tells "Extra" of the paparazzi horde that trails Spears during her busy Starbucks-tanning-shopping-driving-around daily schedule. "And I think we should be taking a little more responsibility for it."

Adds the ornery Oscar winner, "I know this is going to be like, 'The gladiator protects the Mouseketeer!'"

Next: Romance Report: Kate, Gwyneth, Diaz, Pink