The Return of Sparkling Adventures - Merge

[Porcelina]

Ohhhh she's coming to Perth... I'm so tempted to take one for the team and offer her my driveway but I wonder if she'd remember the snarky post I made on her FB when I was horrified about the pool gate. Hmmm. I wonder if she'd do a play date somewhere? Kinda scared that my toddler would get nits or something from the girls though.

[Blahblah]

Sorry to report that I didn't see her on the road. According to her Twatter she's well on her way to Western Australia now.

[fancypants]

Ooh I'm in Perth, too. I'm scared of people, though, and doubly scared of crazy hippie people whose husbands murdered their babies. So yeah.

[Vex]

Ohhhh she's coming to Perth... I'm so tempted to take one for the team and offer her my driveway but I wonder if she'd remember the snarky post I made on her FB when I was horrified about the pool gate. Hmmm. I wonder if she'd do a play date somewhere? Kinda scared that my toddler would get nits or something from the girls though.

Don't worry, she won't get lice from them. Lice dislike oily hair, and boy do they have oily hair. Also, you need to have direct hair-to-hair/head-to-head contact to get them because they can't jump or fly. So as long as the kids were supervised to make sure their heads don't touch then there should be no danger of transmission. Besides, these days there are so many gentle, environmentally safe lice shampoos for kids that they're not a big deal to get rid of. I think some of them even have preventative products. I'd totally risk a few nits for a close encounter with Her Sparkliness.

[miffy]

She posted a photo if the Nullabor plain this morning. I really hope that she is careful, it's so isolated. She probably doesn't have any kind of radio or location device. A friend who travels alone in the outback has a GPS of some kind that allows his parents to track exactly where he is and a one button emergency thing that alerts them. Driving through remote areas is not like the busy east coast highways she is used to.

[takers401]

I have tried searching her blog and reading previous posts, but I'm obviously blind to the information. How did it come to be that the father was convicted of killing his child? I saw on her blog that they went for a walk on some bridge and slipped and the child fell into the river and wasn't found until the next day, but nothing more on dad.

[shedemei]

I have tried searching her blog and reading previous posts, but I'm obviously blind to the information. How did it come to be that the father was convicted of killing his child? I saw on her blog that they went for a walk on some bridge and slipped and the child fell into the river and wasn't found until the next day, but nothing more on dad.

David (the father) was walking with Elijah in a stroller that night. They either both fell into the river or just Elijah.

From Lauren: fhttp://www.sparklingadventures.com/index.php?id=1642

[Blahblah]

David (the father) was walking with Elijah in a stroller that night. They either both fell into the river or just Elijah.

From Lauren: fhttp://www.sparklingadventures.com/index.php?id=1642

There were witnesses to at least some of this and they were definitely both in the water.

[Dysfundamental]

I have tried searching her blog and reading previous posts, but I'm obviously blind to the information. How did it come to be that the father was convicted of killing his child? I saw on her blog that they went for a walk on some bridge and slipped and the child fell into the river and wasn't found until the next day, but nothing more on dad.

His case hasn't come to trial. He is currently being held at a secure mental health facility. It seems pretty clear from pictures of the bridge that "slipped and fell" can't have described what happened (there are guardrails). [link=http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8980414]These folks[/link] rounded up press coverage, including photos of the bridge.

[takers401]

There were witnesses to at least some of this and they were definitely both in the water.

I must have skimmed over the part where it mentioned they both went on. Upon first read I only saw that Elijah was in the water. Thanks for setting me straight.

[ari_belle]

It was simply TOO disturbing that she posted pictures of her deceased baby. Even if his face wasn't showing, it's too much.

[chaotic life]

thelivingfreeproject.com/time-to-rethink-radical-unschooling/

Don't think it necessaily needs broken but did so jic. Pretty much spot-on for the la-la land Lauren has taken her children down.

[happy atheist]

thelivingfreeproject.com/time-to-rethink-radical-unschooling/

Don't think it necessaily needs broken but did so jic. Pretty much spot-on for the la-la land Lauren has taken her children down.

Totally.

I even saw the "rethink everything" tagline in there, which Lauren was so proud of at one point.

[Chicken bones]

Oh, if only Lauren and crew were in Austin this weekend for Eeyore's Birthday Party...this would SO be her kind of thing. (it's actually a fun event, but I bet L would find many "authetic" folk like herself...)

www.eeyores.com/13/index.shtml

Somehow I bet there's no royalties paid to Disney for the use of the name or image! :D

[HeckBound]

This chick seems to correlate "authenticity" with a disregard for personal hygiene.

My biggest problem with this home/un/whatever schooling is that it puts kids in a position where no one outside the family will ever notice if the kid drops off the grid. There've been a couple of cases in the US lately of kids being found chained in the basement, starved and beaten and god knows what - and in these cases the kids were homeschooled. Google "Homeschooled kids chained in basement" and the list is long. If Lauren weren't such an inveterate obsessive blogger, she could easily move to some town where no one knows her -missing a kid or two - and who there would be the wiser?

[CheeseDeprived]

My biggest problem with this home/un/whatever schooling is that it puts kids in a position where no one outside the family will ever notice if the kid drops off the grid. There've been a couple of cases in the US lately of kids being found chained in the basement, starved and beaten and god knows what - and in these cases the kids were homeschooled. Google "Homeschooled kids chained in basement" and the list is long. If Lauren weren't such an inveterate obsessive blogger, she could easily move to some town where no one knows her -missing a kid or two - and who there would be the wiser?

I think most homeschoolers would have a decent network of friends and family... but you are right of course - someone who's a bit off their rocker could easily use HS to get away with murder, literally.

Am loving the post at The Living Free Project. I tried a bit of unschooling with my homeschooled child recently and it just. Doesn't. Work. Made me feel like this: :angry-banghead: :cray-cray: :wtf:

[ThatSnark]

This chick seems to correlate "authenticity" with a disregard for personal hygiene.

My biggest problem with this home/un/whatever schooling is that it puts kids in a position where no one outside the family will ever notice if the kid drops off the grid. There've been a couple of cases in the US lately of kids being found chained in the basement, starved and beaten and god knows what - and in these cases the kids were homeschooled. Google "Homeschooled kids chained in basement" and the list is long. If Lauren weren't such an inveterate obsessive blogger, she could easily move to some town where no one knows her -missing a kid or two - and who there would be the wiser?

You've put your finger on what bothers me most about Lauren's silence-- people could sort of keep an eye on things when she overshared, but now that she's been very quiet, it's worrisome what is happening. I hope she is in the eye of the public enough to raise flags if things are not OK.

[AuntCloud]

Chaotic Life, thank you so much for the article. I've been following a homeschooling/natural parenting forum since Cloudlet #1 was tiny. I was never part of the community but had several friends who were further from mainstream parenting than I was.

It was just as the article described - the "community" turning on mothers who admitted their children and them are much happier with preschool in their lives, mothers who did NOT manage elimination communication very well, and mothers who guiltily admitted to leaving their four year old with a babysitter for the first time in their lives. It even got to a point where people were ashamed to admit they owned a stroller - apparently, carrying a 20-lb baby all day, especially in the Israeli summer, is not all what it's cracked up to be. On the flip-side, I saw encouragement of homebirth in high-risk pregnancies, unassisted childbirth (one poster had a deaf husband and she gave birth in the bathroom, unassisted, with him in the living room). And always, natural parenting as a competitive sport. I'll out-unschool you, out-free birth you, and make you feel like the world's worst parent for letting your child ride in a stroller or wear a disposable diaper. It almost looked like some moms were orchestrating their birth to get as much fawning and attention online as possible.

[CheeseDeprived]

You've put your finger on what bothers me most about Lauren's silence-- people could sort of keep an eye on things when she overshared, but now that she's been very quiet, it's worrisome what is happening. I hope she is in the eye of the public enough to raise flags if things are not OK.

I have to admit, I've been wondering about the girls... she hasn't posted any pictures of them on her Instagram for a while, and hasn't mentioned them much either. But I don't follow her on FB - has she shared more about them on there?

I wasn't at all fond of her oversharing from a privacy POV, so if she's simply decided to give the girls (and herself) more privacy, then good on her... but it does leave you wondering if everything is OK.

[happy atheist]

I think part of what makes me uncomfortable is that she was so fucking devoted to blogging at the expense of everything else, and now suddenly she stops. It's such a huge change, and it feels like it must be a symptom. She's so narcissistic. If she's not getting the attention from the blog, then where is she getting it?

[Kishiria]

I went to her FB and jumped because her profile photo looks like a still from the movie "The Handmaid's Tale".

After seeing the photo of her with Elijah's blanket, all I can think is, "This is a person who wants to die." Very worrisome.

[Blahblah]

I think part of what makes me uncomfortable is that she was so fucking devoted to blogging at the expense of everything else, and now suddenly she stops. It's such a huge change, and it feels like it must be a symptom. She's so narcissistic. If she's not getting the attention from the blog, then where is she getting it?

And she isn't even tweeting regularly. Very odd.

[shedemei]

I truly hope that she's taking a break from online interaction to focus on herself, the girls, and other real-world relationships. She's not going to really find healing on the blog or twitter; using the internet to escape your problems is not healthy beyond a certain point. Especially when you're living a fantasy life online.

I hope she has a strong support network.

[chaotic life]

If she is finally letting herself FEEL her grief, then she may have quite a bit of time where she doesn't remember it later. My main concern is that if she is wandering instead of hunkering down somewhere SAFE, the children will not be safe while she processes this grief.

[Wolfie]

If she is finally letting herself FEEL her grief, then she may have quite a bit of time where she doesn't remember it later. My main concern is that if she is wandering instead of hunkering down somewhere SAFE, the children will not be safe while she processes this grief.

This. I have had two periods in my life when multiple people died in a short amount of time, and I don't remember blocks of time during those years. Luckily, I only had animals to take care of, as well as students. So everything was very structured. Structure helps to keep stuff going when you just want to go into a corner and hide forever.