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LAST UPDATE: Monday October 06, 2008 01:10PM EDT

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Cover Story

Mom to the Rescue

After losing custody of her children, Britney Spears reunites with her mom Lynne. Will it make a difference – or is Britney still out of control?

Originally posted Thursday October 11, 2007 12:00 PM EDT

"For them to be talking again," says a family friend, "is a good sign." Photo by: Westley Hargrave / Splash News Online

Mothers and daughters do it all the time: take a quiet stroll, have a little heart-to-heart. So it was that on Oct. 6 Lynne Spears and her daughter Britney walked on Ramirez Canyon Road on a sunny afternoon in Malibu, not far from Britney's home. Lynne pushed her grandsons Preston, 2, and Jayden in a two-seat stroller, while Britney, in dark sunglasses, ambled alongside. The whole thing lasted just a half hour, but what mattered was that it happened at all. Says one passerby: "They seemed to be trying to have some quality family time."

Just days after temporarily losing custody of her children Oct. 1 – and not long after her 1-year-old son Jayden began to walk for the first time – Britney took an important baby step of her own by agreeing to meet with her mom, with whom she has been feuding since early summer.

Originally set for their hometown of Kentwood, La., but later switched to California, the reunion began when Lynne, 52, and Britney's sister Jamie Lynn, 16, traveled from Kentwood to Los Angeles Oct. 5, touching down around 8:30 p.m. At first, things did not go smoothly. Unable to find Britney at her Malibu home, Lynne became visibly upset and turned to paparazzi for help, pleading, "Please find my daughter." The Spears women finally arrived at Britney's Beverly Hills house around 3 a.m. and then spent several days with her in her Beverly Hills and Malibu homes – their first real get-together since Britney, 25, tried to bar Lynne from seeing her boys after a string of shattering arguments started their estrangement in June.