Summer Television

Pretty much, television over the summer is re-runs and bad reality shows. We don’t watch much t.v. this time of year because it’s generally so unenjoyable. However - the girls and I have become kind of hooked on

TLC’s Jon and Kate Plus Eight

. They are running the past three seasons, plus the current one all the time and we record them and watch them when we’re in a vegging mood. I totally love this show. It’s a reality show that follows a family that has twin 8 year old girls and 4 year old sextuplets. Basically, your average child-bearing nightmare.

I love it because of course the kids are adorable and watching sextuplet toddlers do

anything

is entertaining. Also I like that Jon and Kate snark at each other in a manner that I think a lot of couples do (well, we do anyway) but still manage to look as if they are genuinely happy together. The icing on the cake is that Kate IS my sister Nicki, and Jon is a Korean version of Nicki’s husband, Brett. Even my kids noticed. Nicki and Kate even have similar hair. So I like to watch it and see just how Nicki would behave if she had eight children (which, if she keeps going off to the corners of the world and bringing home adorable babies to love she may very well have one day).

I am so currently taken with this program that I even went and looked at the message boards to see why the grandparents are never shown. That question didn’t get answered but reading the boards blew my mind. Who

are

these people who make horrible comments about real, innocent people? Does having your family on television mean that people can start posting threads about the relative homliness of one of your daughters vs. another? Seriously. What gives people license to comment at length on the mental health of a stranger’s child? I am aghast. No more message boards for me. The

family’s homepage

is much nicer. And when producer’s call and want to put make my family into a reality show, I’m telling them “no way.” I already know that I’m screwing this up, I don’t need faceless strangers discussing it at length.

I’m sorry the commenting feature isn’t working here. I don’t know what’s up with that. Hopefully it will be functioning soon.