Oh-so proud

I mentioned in my intro post that I have a family. A1 is my endlessly-patient husband who puts up with all of my crazy. Bug is our 16-month-old daughter, who seems to have inherited a great deal of my crazy. Here's a recent photo of the two of them:


Now, if you know anything about babies, you might be thinking to yourself, she looks a little on the small side for a 16-month-old. You'd be right for two reasons. One, she's 13-months-old there (I may have exaggerated the recent thing a little). Two, she is very small.

For at least half of her life at this point, we've been concerned about Lea's size. She's fallen off the growth chart a few times, wears a size considerably smaller than her age would suggest and I have to feed her like I'm the witch fattening up Hansel for Christmas dinner with my coven.

At almost 16-months, she weights a whopping 18 pounds, 5 ounces. That puts her in the first percentile on the growth chart but it's almost 3 pounds heavier than she was 2 months ago, so we're pleased.

While we were at the GI specialist's office last week, Lea showed off one of her current favorite skills. We stripped her down to her bare bottom for the weighing, then sat her on the scale to see what the verdict would be. The scale reads out in something else and then we check the conversion chart because, well, I'm a journalist and he's a social studies teacher - we don't know math.

Every time we do this little ritual of ours, I catch myself holding my breath. Despite the fact that they know we feed our kid and she's clean, happy and (otherwise) healthy, I'm always afraid children's services is going to show up to make sure we aren't starving her.

This time, when the scale gave us our judgment, and we all looked to the conversion chart, it was happy news.

And our happy baby, sitting buck-naked on a piece of paper on a scale, clapped. That's right, she clapped for her own weight gain, smiling proudly at us.

This is one of Lea's new favorite habits. She also claps when one of us walks in the door and when we go to wake her up in the mornings or get her up from a nap. But most of all, she loves clapping for herself, and loves even more to clap for herself while saying "AAAAA ee-yuh" (translation: Yay Lea!).

Obviously, sharing a BMI with supermodels is doing a lot for her self-esteem.

Big Brother 13 - Brenchel lives, a little piece of me dies

Previously on Big Brother... Brendon went home, Rachel cried, Lawon made a move nearly as awful as his suits.

On Thursday's Big Brother, we saw the resolution of Lawon's brilliant plant to sacrifice himself for eviction based on his (incorrect) deduction that he would come back in the house as HOH.

Naturally, he was wrong. The other HGs did, in fact, fulfill Lawon's wish to be voted out but that's where the plan fell to pieces. Instead of automatically coming back in as HOH, Lawon had to compete with a previously-evicted HG of America's choosing to return to the house.

And, damn you America, you chose Brendon.

Now, personally, I think this is some of that producer-meddling we hear so much about - that's right, I call hijinks. Because personally I don't know of a single person who voted for Brendon. And looking around at the most popular BB forums and sites, it doesn't look like a lot of other people were voting Brendon back in the game. I myself voted for Cassi/Olivia Wilde, if only for the amusement of seeing Rachel's head explode.

But, no. America chose Brendon and Brendon handily won against Lawon.

And then it happened. Rachel ran toward her man, leaped through the air and wrapped her legs around him as she hugged him.

She's done this a few times and it never fails. It creeps me out to see it every. single. time. I'm not even exactly sure, but there's something about it that just seems so wrong to me and watching it makes me feel like I'm seeing something I'm not supposed to. And the discomfort of seeing it, the thought of watching these two jackasses and their idiotic arguments and banter for even another minute let alone another week, it took over and I felt a little piece of my heart shrivel up and die, the same way it does every time I meet someone who actually likes Sarah Palin.

Of course with these two, the only person who feels like they shouldn't be watching their intimate moments is the audience. They have no problem getting down in front of the BB cameras and we all know Brendon likes to share.

So Brenchel lives to continue to steal pieces of my soul and innocence, bit by bit. The show ended with Danielle looking peeved and Rachel telling Brendon all about how mean everyone has been to her.

Oh, well. At least we can hope for an epic fight between these two if Brendon wins a veto again - because he clearly learned this week that Rachel left in the house on her own will fall apart. I don't think he'll make that mistake again.

What did you think of last night's episode? Was Lawon's move the dumbest in Big Brother history or does Marcellas still own that honor?

Previously on... my life

Welcome to my new blog, thepreviously.com. If you aren't a mildly-obsessive television watcher like me, you may not know that The Previously is the name for that recap at the beginning of a tv show that reminds you of what just went down last week, presumably as a nod to the fact that your crack-like addiction to the DVR is slowly rotting your memory. For example:

"Previously on Rock of Love... skanks acted like skanks."

"Previously on 24... Jack Bauer woke up, ate breakfast, showered and killed seven terrorists before dawn."

"Previously on Gilmore Girls... pretty people spoke really, really fast."

"Previously on Bridezillas... bitches went crazy."

I have always enjoyed TV. I know that gets a lot of judgement and that's fine - judge on. I judge the hell out of you for not understanding the hilarity of Chuck, the pure amusement Big Brother brings or the delicious drama Pretty Little Liars serves up.

Outside of television habits, I'm a happily-married mother of one and a happy-just-to-be-employed journalist.

On this blog, I'll be dishing about all of that and my favorite television. Some of my favorites shows of all time include: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Pushing Daisies, Veronica Mars, Arrested Development and Twin Peaks. Current favorites you'll probably see pop up on the blog include Teen Mom in all its forms, Big Brother, Pretty Little Liars, Chuck, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Bones, Castle, Gossip Girl, Bored to Death and Dexter.

You'll probably also sometimes hear about the ridiculous (and usually slightly trampy) adventures of my Sims, whom I always name after favorite TV and movie characters.

See you next time!