AND HERE'S TO YOU...

"Mrs. Marler, are you trying to seduce me?"



Yes.

Yes, Coop, she is.

And isn't she setting a wonderful example for her daughter in the process?

Starting Wednesday, June 25 (coincidentally, the same week Blake and Coop are scheduled to play a little game of "Guess who I found in my bed?"), Naelee Rae will join the cast of Guiding Light as Clarissa Marler.

The actress, who turns 12 on August 25, has appeared on The Practice and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She is also the voice of Tasha on The Backyardigans.

Clarissa Marler was born on-screen Christmas Eve 1999. She was named after her grandmother... Holly.

I can explain.

Back in 1999, Blake and Ross had gotten a divorce due to her affair with Ross' brother, Ben. (Blake initially cried rape and Ross tried to shoot Ben, accidentally paralyzing Blake in the process.) However, as people on the edge of ending their marriages are wont to do, Ross and Blake (no longer paralyzed) had sex while locked in a bathroom. (It's a bathroom. What else is there to do? Your choices are shower, exfoliate, or clean out the drain. Who wouldn't choose sex?)

When Blake discovered she was pregnant, she was reluctant to tell Ross, because she thought he was now involved with Blake's mother, Holly. Seeing as how Blake had initially seduced Ross away from Holly, the turnabout was a pretty logical conclusion for her to leap to.) When Ross found out about the baby, Blake lied that it wasn't his.

In the meantime, to keep her mind occupied while gestating, Blake began writing a novel based on what she believed was the love triangle between her, Holly and Ross.

Ross eventually learned the truth and, when Blake went into labor at the Bauer cabin while stranded alone, he arrived just in time to help deliver their daughter. Who was named Clarissa... after Holly's character in Blake's book.

So what can we expect from young Clarissa?

Will biology prove destiny for this young lady down the road?

After all, Clarissa's grandmother, Holly, was barely a couple of days over eighteen when she became infatuated with one Roger Thorpe, followed him to New York City and hopped into his bed. And that certainly ended well.

Mom Blake was a tad older when she returned to Springfield in 1988. But the late start didn't keep her from managing to become intimately involved with Alan, Alan's favorite son, Phillip, and Alan's less-favorite son, Alan-Michael, within the space of two years.

And then there's Clarissa's half-sister, Dinah. After several strangely goody-two-shoes teen years (yes, there was a time when Dinah was the saint and Harley the sinner), Dinah came into her own post-college, when she tried to seduce her mother's husband, married Roger Thorpe (her stepmother's father, thus becoming, technically, her own grandmother), tried to drive him crazy, fell in love with Roger's son, shot Hart to keep him away from Cassie, committed arson, embezzled, bribed -- really, the list goes on and on.

And that's little Clarissa's legacy. Which family member will she end up taking after? (Keep in mind, her great-grandmother, Barbara, wrote cookbooks and seemed to be more or less liked by all, so there's always hope.)

Tune into Guiding Light next week and find out!