Liveblogging The Baby Borrowers

Ok, if this isn't the stupidest program on television, ever, I don't know what is.

First of all, what parents in their right minds would let their teenagers move in with their boyfriends or girlfriends? I can't believe this show found 10 families willing to allow their kids to move in with their significant others and share a bed! Call me old fashioned, but over my dead body!

Second, what rock did they find the infants' and toddlers' parents under? My God - the only thing worse than allowing your teens to move in with their S.O.s that I can think of is turning your defenseless baby over to a couple of selfish, immature, inexperienced teenagers. It's reprehensible that they found 10 families - 5 babies and 5 toddlers - to do this. I am absolutely appalled.

The whole premise is idiotic. Life doesn't just drop fully formed into your lap one day. You learn to roll, then you learn to push up on your arms, then you learn to crawl, then you learn to walk, then you learn to run, then you learn to dance. Taking these kids and dumping them in "the real world" is the same thing as taking a 3 month old and expecting her to do the rhumba.

The first "experiment" was the pregnancy belly - the girls had to wear a belly that made them look 13 months pregnant for a day or two. One of the girls completely freaked out and refused to wear it. For crying out loud, the baby starts off as two cells. You have 9 months to get used to the gradual growth before you get to the point where you're the size of the broad side of a barn. It doesn't happen all at once. If it did, no one would ever get pregnant. How terrifying and impossible would it be to roll over after conception and suddenly be 30 pounds heavier and huge? It's nothing like real pregnancy, and saying that it is like pregnancy is just ignorant.

Ok, we've caught up to where I am in the show now. After this commercial, they're going to get the babies. But, again, life doesn't just drop a 10 month old in your lap (unless you adopt, but even then you get the whole long adoption process to prepare yourself, emotionally and physically, for a baby, in much the same way that a pregnant woman or a pregnant couple can prepare themselves).

The other problem that I have with this premise is that your own baby is a whole different story from any other baby you have ever dealt with, ever, in your life. I remember being in the hospital when Mary Grace was born, and she started to cry so Brandon handed her back to me, saying, "She wants her mom." I remember thinking, "This is it. This is where everyone sees that I can't do this. This is where they're going to realize that I'm a fraud and that I can't make this kid happy, and that I have no idea what I'm doing..." He handed her to me, and she stopped crying like magic, just because I was me.

Babies know their parents from the moment they're born, and that makes it easier to take care of them in so many ways. Of course the kids on this show are going to be traumatized, being away from their parents, so they're going to make the teenagers' lives living hells. Of course. But it's not at all like that if they're your own. Ok, sometimes it is, just because babies have gas or colic or whatever, but generally infants are going to be happier with their own parents than they will be with anyone else. And they don't know what's going on, they don't understand this "experiment" so the babies are going to be freaked out. This is borderline cruelty.

I don't know if it's true for BJ, but my kids' diapers have never bothered me the way that other kids' diapers bothered me. And I've been thrown up on dozens of times, and while it's not an experience I would choose, it's not disgusting on the same level that other peoples' vomit would be. I call it "local gross" versus "foreign gross" - substances out of the bodies of the people who live in this house just don't bother me the way substances from strangers would bother me. Does that make sense?

Ok, here comes the baby... 11 months old. Oh my God, he's a choker. And they're going to give him to a couple of kids. Jeezus. Mary Grace was a choker. I gave her the back blows about a thousand times. Claire doesn't do it, though, thank heavens. It was terrifying.

Baby #2 - the parents of baby #2 think that they're doing these teenagers a favor, teaching them that parenting is more than changing diapers... Ack. Seven months old and teething. Good luck.

Six month old Baby #3. Mom was a teenager mother. Ok, her reasons for participating in this almost make sense. I dislike her the least.

Baby #4 - these kids aren't listening to the mother's instructions at all. Scary. Mom's nervous. YA THINK? Maybe you should've thought about that before you signed up for this, Mommy Dearest!

Here comes freaked-out-about-the-belly-mom - they get Zachary. She says she felt motherly toward him. How is she going to get motherly in real life if she can't deal with being pregnant?

Ok, the parents can watch 24/7 and intervene if they need to, and there are nannies in the house to step in just in case there's an emergency. That makes me feel a bit better.

The boys are going shopping for baby supplies. Again, this isn't something you have to learn all at once. You get a thousand samples from the hospital, you get gifts at your shower, you work into it gradually. This is like baby bootcamp. It's nothing like real life at all.

This blond kid, the surfer guy, seems to have a good head on his shoulders. His girlfriend is a spoiled little twit, though.

How sad - Karson's mother intervened because he wouldn't eat, and she said to the teenager, "He doesn't want to eat because you're holding him, and he's not used to being held." I guess that explains what kind of parents would allow their child to be a part of this sort of "experiment." Parents who don't hold their kids. Parents who think holding is spoiling. Mother of God... Paging Dr. Sears, Dr. Sears to the Stupid TV Show, STAT!

And, we're back from commercial. The obligatory "gagging over the diapers" shots are next. Yeah, you don't want to go in too early - make sure they're done before you start changing it. That's important. Now the baby who pooped is crying. The kids don't realize that babies are like worms when it comes to their digestive systems - if some comes out, some has to go back in. Often, putting something in will cause something to come out. But if something comes out, and nothing's gone in, the baby's going to cry. He's hungry. Feed him!

Oh, all the babies are crying now. It's making my boobs hurt, hearing all these crying babies. I don't know how these parents can sit in the "observation house" and just watch their kids cry all day. What a bunch of assholes.

Ooohh... Kelsey's jealous that the baby likes her boyfriend more. That's real. Claire prefers BJ, and sometimes it just kills me. It's a good thing we had MG first, and she prefered me, because now I can just repeat to myself all the things I said to him about MG when she was small - don't take it personally, babies are weird, she loves you, it's not a reflection on your abilities as a parent, and so on...

I love how these kids are calling the babies "it." Hahaha... The mom just confronted the couple in the preview (Kelsey and her boyfriend) for saying, "Let's just put it in the other room," during the night when the baby was crying. She said "IT? It is a little girl!"

I think that's the problem with a lot of teenagers who want to be parents (not that I think this is common anywhere but TV land, but what do I know about teenagers?). They see the baby as an object, or an accessory... Like Paris Hilton's dog, only less furry. Then they have a baby, and they realize that "it" is a person, not an object, and by the time they figure that out, it's too late to back out. Maybe this show isn't all garbage. But I still think every single parent involved is out of his or her mind.

The way the African-American baby cried when her daddy showed up, oh, it's breaking my heart! Now she's happy because her dad is there. No infant should be away from her parents for three days. This is just cruel. I'm really worried that one of these babies is going to get shaken in the night. Nights are hard, anyway, and these babies want their parents.

I think I'm hallucinating. Peter Brady is on a trapeze. Maybe I was hasty when I said that the Baby Borrowers was the stupidest show on TV... This is pretty bad. I could've gone my whole life without the flying Bradies.

Hello, NBC? I used to love you. ER, Friends, Frazier, Cheers, the Cosby Show, all outstanding shows. There was a time in my life when I rarely watched any TV show that wasn't on NBC, but you've gotten lame. Very very lame. It's time to return to your roots (you know, shows with actors and plots!) instead of all this trashy "reality" TV. We're over it, already.

In all honesty, I don't think I'm going to be wasting an hour on The Baby Borrowers next week.

Oh, Claire started saying "Max" today. She says, "Maa-ah!" in a "yoo hoo" sort of descending third tone... It's really cute, I'll try to get it on tape.