I’ve been watching Sister Wives trying to find something interesting enough to report on these past couple of weeks. Apart from Janelle revealing that her mom was Kody’s dad’s second wife there hasn’t been much. I guess that’s newsworthy in itself, because everyone seems to get along, the petty jealousy is minor and the cattiness is disguised as innocent questions and concern. (I loved when Robyn said last week that Christine was having a difficult time with her baby because it was harder to have kids when you’re older. That was so bitchy, but she made it sound like a question.)

This week we got to see Meri get a colonoscopy and get two non-cancerous polyps removed from her colon. Her sister died of colon cancer at 31 so she said she was very worried about it, and that was understandable. I didn’t need to see all that, but it reminded me that I need to get a colonoscopy so I guess it was useful.

The Browns had a party for their “non-polygamist” friends to kind of celebrate the fact that they’d come out as polygamists and to help the people they knew ease into the idea. Meri explained that she’s careful to hold people at arm’s length so that they don’t find out about her “lifestyle” and that this was a big deal for them. Janelle said she’d never told anyone she was a polygamist and that after it came out in the press she felt the fallout at work. “there was tons of gossip going on and people running back and forth to everybody’s cubicle and staring at me.” She brought a friend of hers from work who said he was “so excited” and thought it was “cool” that she was a polygamist. He was pretty funny. Other friends of the family talked about how they found out and how the Browns were just a regular family.

People is running with the angle that now-pregnant Robyn called polygamy a “girl party” and talked about how much fun it is to go to the store. She’s a dumbass and the female equivalent of Kody so she’s perfect for him. Janelle said she finds the other women embarrassing when they go out in public and act goofy, so that’s why she spends so much time at work. I think the real story here is what Robyn said about how it feels tense when Kody is there and how she’s coping with jealousy. She usually seems to do it by subtly putting the other women down, particularly Christine:

“When Kody’s not around… it goes better. It gets kind of tense when he’s around because we’re more careful about not hurting each other’s feelings and not stepping on each other’s toes, not showing him too much attention. We can get jealous he’s maybe giving someone more attention than the rest.

“Meri and I have a really great relationship. Christine and I have a great relationship, it’s like best buddies. [When] Kody comes in, it no longer is Meri and I just focus on each other, it’s like all of a sudden we’re both focused on him. I can get jealous for sure. He and I are close and we love each other, but I know he loves Christine and Meri and Janelle too. There’s days when I can tell that he’s been talking to them or that he’s felt a closeness with them [ed note: sex], I have to be really secure with myself and with he and I for that not to bug me sometimes.”

So it’s a “girl party” when Kody isn’t there, but when he is they all have to watch it and be careful that they don’t hog the one doofus they’re all sharing or get jealous that he’s paying one of them more attention. There’s a sure way to get Kody’s attention – get pregnant and have another kid. Robyn seems to be on board with that strategy. I doubt the other three care as much about impressing him at this point as she does.