aunt jen

Xanthippe! I was so sad she wasn't on S2.

Madchen Amick was also in Gilmore Girls as Sherry, Christopher's girlfriend who got conveniently knocked up the first time he and Lorelei tried to get together on the show. She was a type-A crazypants who lost it when she went into labor before her scheduled c-section.

My state. My town. I'm gonna love this, I know. (full disclosure - I am from Albany in Southwest GA, which is majority black and where the racial divisions informed my entire childhood; its frustrations do feel bleak to me. I have lived in the northern burbs since I was 13 years old, but still have a ton of family down home. I am a late-thirties white lady)

We fell in love with the most recent season that aired on PBS and grew such an affection for the contestants (especially Ruby, who generally presented a dish to the judges while telling them how terribly she did until they told her to knock it off, in a loving way. I thought she would explode from anxiety). We've since downloaded and watched the first-ever season, and the one on Nextflix is, I believe, the second season that aired and we are watching that now. The show at some point abandoned Mel and Sue's little field trips to find out how medieval pie was made or whatever, because it wasn't in the most recent season. I can barely bake but I learned a trick from the show that I used when making toffee so I'm calling it educational and not food porn.

Damn, that bingo meltdown.

Those of us with small children were probably not too taken aback with "zeh-bra" - Peppa Pig is big in my house and she has a friend called Zoe Zebra and they pronounce it the same way. Outside of anthropomorphic animals designed to delight preschoolers, though, I imagine zebras don't come up much, so I can see why it would take someone outside of the episode, a little.

Thank you - I was about to say exactly this when I saw your post. My son is 4 and is in a similar program; it is a 3 hour session. He's very speech delayed (Will is a little ahead of where my son is) and overall, on average, about a year behind where he should be in all the social/occupational/behavioral areas. I did put him in the program with mostly 3 year olds, because 1) the kid still takes a 3 hour nap every day and we tried the other session, during which he lost his nap AND his damn mind, and 2) his birthday is less than a week before school starts in my county, so he'd already be the youngest in his class, and a year behind to boot, so I am holding him back a year from the start. He's in class with the kids who will start kindergarten with him. Children with invisible disabilities can "pass" (for lack of a better word) so you don't get all the stares in public. But there's a special kind of worry with kids whose issues are not apparent; we've all seen the kid having a tantrum or meltdown and thought the parents were just ineffective, but the reality is that many kids, more than one might think, have sensory problems and get easily overwhelmed, may be autistic, or may be mentally ill. I am grateful my teeny preemie is still short because the communication delays have made potty-training difficult, and he's still small enough that people don't think I'm a lazy mom that won't potty-train her kid. They can also be more vulnerable to predators - ambulatory, independent, but unable to communicate anything that parents might see as a red flag. IF Will is developmentally delayed, that may be something the Arnold/Kleins are aware of (super-likely for Jen as a ped/neonatologist) but are glossing over. They are walking a fine line between using their family to educate, and making sure they don't hurt their kids. All of us can (and do) have opinions on their degree of success, but if they publicly labeled Will as delayed that could hurt him long after he "catches up." Not pride or denial, but protection would be the first instinct. I am very cautious about allowing my son to be labeled with anything that may hold him back from what I know he can do, while weighing the benefits of those labels (diagnoses get services). I can't imagine that on a national TV scale. On another note, I loved getting to see the simulation center in action. My NICU was amazing but if they had a center like that I was not aware of it. We did "room in" the night before we went home, and were required to take an infant CPR class, and that was it. We were very fortunate in that we didn't come home on a trach, but I completely understood the gratitude and pride in herself that mom showed.

They really do, I have no idea how other people get along with two parents, and single parents deserve all the vacations. This is why I love this show. Not all people who divorce have to hate each other. Blended families are replacing "broken homes" and it's nice to see an example of that on my TV screen.

Any time I've seen the older kids write anything (I don't follow them on social media but I see things here and elsewhere), they seem to write pretty well, use decent (if more casual) grammar, and spell things correctly. I'd be interested to see if the younger kids are when they get old enough to be on social media. Clearly, the older kids were given a good foundation of reading and writing; the big unknown is how much of that has gotten to the little ones.

There's a version of Clue called "Clue - the Classic Mystery Game" that you can play with only 2 people. I hope that helps you enjoy the 1985 credits more, since they are delightful.

I could completely see the Josie experience changing her, and then Jubilee on top of it. It seems to have gone from control and delegation out of necessity to brittle detached control freak. I.... may have developed tendencies like that in a 2-year span that included a micro, my husband's 2 hip replacements and the painful degeneration led up to them, and the death of my dad. I realized I was getting controlling about so many tiny things, and (there's no other word for it) brittle, like I was tentatively held together with glue, and I see that in Michelle. I sought out therapy for what was diagnosed as a panic disorder; I hope Michelle and JB work through it somehow, with or without therapy, because it's hard all around. It's not unheard-of for micropreemie moms to have PTSD. It's even more common to develop garden-variety depression and anxiety. She had to go through all that, keep sweet for both the cameras and her lifestyle, all while being away from the whole giant family she's used to having. I choose to see her one-on-ones with the kids, episode fillers that they are, as also her taking tiny steps back into the mom she used to be, because she was engaged a lot more back in the day. She's always done things that bug but to a degree easier to shrug off; lately it seems to be on a macro scale.

Re: Cameron springing a wedding and baby on Emmett. While I never had a pregnancy sprung on me (still the baby!) my dad remarried twice after he and my mom split, when I was three and when I was seven, and both times it was all like "hey, that nice lady you met a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, we got married and we're going to go live with her now!" Um, okay. He could have made sure they didn't suck, but I guess you'd have to be pretty screwed up to think that's okay. I think I kind of hate Debbie or whatever her name is, based on that. Cameron is clueless and a demonstrated tool, but her lack of regard for his son's place in his life is crappy. I wonder if that'll get explored. Otherwise, I'm getting annoyed that the SaB writers seem to think "Emmett gets totally screwed over but is kind of a doormat about it" is valid character development. Loved Mary Beth and Travis! Feel totally guilty that when Melody's skype caller mentioned her 2 boys I sat there for at least a full minute thinking "2 sons?" But later I wondered: how could she take Travis to live in a different state? Is he 18? Or does she have a guardianship agreement? And then I wondered if it was okay that a school employe took in a student in the first place and oh god I need a hobby.

Ahahahaha even better! Preemie humor FTW

God, I hope the Josie car is like a SmartCar or at least a subcompact.

I hate that thinking, but I know Hannie had a pretty bad injury and was referred in case some possible reconstruction needed to happen; she bit through her lip and her teeth got kind of jacked up IIRC. Jason's injury when he fell in that orchestra pit was more of the "busted chin" variety. I'm firmly convinced the world is evenly divided between those who have busted chin scars and those who don't. But I can see where they would be more concerned about a girl since the curly hair and modest dress is supposed to draw more attention to her "countenance" or whatever. I never knew facial scars were bad for girls until I got older. I have a 2-inch diagonal scar right in the center of my forehead (that was GLUED at an actual hospital by an actual doctor 30+ years ago because lol The South) and it was never a thing, never had an adult or kid comment on it. Whereas when I was older I was given vitamin E oil for a scar on my knee, though that one was a pretty gnarly case of road rash.

My son will be 4 in a month and is not potty trained. It's not a nightmare and it's not the worst thing ever. We are in the process of narrowing down his particular brand of speech and language delay, and suspect it is an auditory processing issue which can't be truly diagnosed until about age 7. We just have to throw things at him to see what works. The fact is that he doesn't have the expressive language and we're not sure how much he understands of more abstract ideas, like the need to pee or poop. He's a micropreemie like Josie. Yes, I have my kid in both school-provided and private therapy while (it appears) they don't, and I know that is a big difference in many minds. But I don't know, all this voice of doom re: potty training is making me wonder what others think about me, as my son's issues are fairly invisible to casual observers. I also haven't seen Josie in a diaper since the blowout about a yearish ago in realtime. Is she still in them?

Well, he's kind of enveloping her, so it's awkward, and I give that a pass, because yay sanctioned front-hug!

Petition to rename this thread "Poor Jana" because in every other thread that's always how she is referenced. I, too, wonder how Jill's leaving affects her. The kids all seem to buddy up (JD/Joseph, Jana/Jill, and especially Jinger/Jessa, though Josh seemed to be a bit of a loner) and I hope she gets to see a lot of Jill through their midwife/doula training.

I hope the show handles that well; my 13yo told us she was bisexual to which my first question was "do I need to change the sleepover rules?" It's pretty academic at this point, late-blooming prude that she is, and I know kids will find a way, but I'm gonna make her have to work for it and sneak around like everyone else has to. I'm not suspending them now, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I love her and only care who she wants to be with insofar as they treat her well. But I do need to keep her safe from diseases and shitty people as much as I can.

I think, just based on observation and wild guessing, that everyone older than Jackson has graduated out of their buddy. Just based on how often Jackson is put with the little girls, instead of the howlers.

Johanna was/is Jinger's? The eye roll potential for that kid is limitless.

My stepdaughter and niece, barely 4 and 3.5 respectively, were my flower girls. My niece broke out in hives and refused to wear the "itchy" dress, so she walked up the aisle in orange gingham (her mom tried to tell her she couldn't be a flower girl without the dress but I played the bride card for my little pal). She then decided to "clean up" the flower petals during the service which struck my stepdaughter as incredibly unfair. In the wedding video, you hear an indignant screech and see a redheaded blur dash to tackle her cousin to get her share of the petals. It was hilarious and I would change nothing.

Re: Michelle's detachment thing. She follows a faith that slut-shames her for being a normal teenager (dating, cheerleading, showing off her body in a borderline inappropriate way) and also tells her that the tomboy she was as a child was wrong, too. She's been suckered into believing the path to salvation is bottling your emotions both good and bad, stapling a smile on your face, treating your husband with deference bordering on being a doormat, living ONLY for your family, and building God's army. Hell, I'd have built a plastic personality too. I feel sorry for her while also being angry that she's setting up her kids, especially her daughters, for the same cycle of hiding shame behind the appearance of piety.

Wait, so Hannie is a bridesmaid (I'm totally in love with this, I love Hannie) but Jackson is a ringbearer? Understandable if he wrangling Michael but 10 seems old for that. Anna, Mack and Mike are in and Josh is presumably on Marcus duty, makes sense since Derick likely doesn't know him very well. Looks like he's using Jill's brothers to balance the numbers but not having Josh in there for no reason. This gives me some hope that he's not totally under the Duggar thumb. As someone upthread said, I think he's biding his time and playing by the rules. I mean, he's a conservative Christian from the south, he probably doesn't drink and is likely going to support conservative politicians. It's just not outside the realm of possibility that he will quietly encourage his wife to continue her education and career, and that there's nothing wrong with natural family planning.

Forgive me for being dumb, but I feel like I missed a scene somewhere. It went straight from Stef nearly holding the judge hostage and him warning her, to her picking up Callie. Stef later said something about the judge wanting a clean trail. Did I miss a scene, or did a big implication go over my head? It's bugging the hell out of me.