19 Kids and Counting: Eating, Sleeping, and Getting Well

There was more to this week's installments than last week's, but the various segments in these two episodes have a severely skewed timeline. "Dinner for Forty" suggests that it's been almost two months since Joseph left for ALERT Academy (decidedly in January), but "A Surgery & A Secret" has JimBob and Josh just starting to lose weight, with numbers that suggest it was at the very beginning of hiring a trainer. When you factor in Anna's pregnancy progress, the timeline could be a little more fluid, but I'll leave that alone.

Perhaps the bigger problem is that we're back to family overview episodes rather than individual characters, which was working nicely. Aside from seeing Joseph eat an MRE and prepare for a 24-hour mission at ALERT, then hearing about Justin and Jordyn's health problems, these two episodes focused on the Duggars (both JimBob's and Josh's) as a whole, which I believe is interesting mostly to newer viewers. Which format do you prefer?

19 Kids and Counting "Dinner for Forty" (S07E07): Anna gives the kids baked tilapia for lunch, and they surprise her by eating it. [why? tilapia is like, the mildest fish out there.] Later, Michael moves into Mackynzie's room... but he's not happy about it. There's so much commotion that Anna and Josh read a book to them, and they both lay down... but then they escape the bedroom again, and again, and again, for hours. [typical stuff that all parents have seen before, but funny to watch when it's someone else!]

The family makes dinner for JimBob's trainer's family and a pastor's family. [they're serving frozen chicken strips??] The pastor's family (six children, named alphabetically) is delighted to be there, and the Duggars talk about attending a service at the pastor's church.

TLC

19 Kids and Counting "A Surgery & A Secret" (S07E08): JimBob and Josh try to drink raw eggs for breakfast before their intense workouts, but they can't go through with it. At this point, Josh had lost 9 pounds and JimBob 7, but the exercise only gets tougher as their trainer continues to push them.

Josh and Anna have Jana and Jill at their ultrasound because they will be part of the birth team. [though we're all starting to realize that this is Jill's thing and Jana is only stuck doing it because Jill needs accompaniment.] Jim, the sound guy, is aware of the sex of the baby and will do a reveal at a later point. [I think that's a funny idea.]

Jordyn snores and talks with a dry mouth so she needs her tonsils removed, though JimBob and Michelle only tell her the very basics. Michelle takes her to pick out some ice cream and popsicles. [Josie putting pepper on her lunch was funny.] She's not the only Duggar under the weather, either... Justin got hit in the eye with a rope and broke a blood vessel, causing him to wear an eye patch for a few days. [ouch!]