The Return of Sparkling Adventures - Merge

[miffy]

There are Romani in Australia. Google says about 25,000 (total Aust population is around 22mil).

There are definitely Irish travellers(like 'gypsies', but not the same) in Australia. I think some might come here for work & others for 'work' (there was a spate of old people getting ripped off by travellers a couple of years ago)

I feel so sorry for Romani & travellers who suffer so much because of the crime aspect that makes people distrust them, pushes them to the borders of society.

[Cerdwin]

Did anyone else see the Facebook post about melancholy being "one of the most unattractive attitudes" this morning? Heaven forbid someone not be all sparkly on the day her husband is due in court for murdering her son. All this stuffing down of any negative emotion is ridiculous, taking control way too far. Feel sad for a couple of days, Lauren, it's not a bad thing!

[already hungover]

Did anyone else see the Facebook post about melancholy being "one of the most unattractive attitudes" this morning? Heaven forbid someone not be all sparkly on the day her husband is due in court for murdering her son. All this stuffing down of any negative emotion is ridiculous, taking control way too far. Feel sad for a couple of days, Lauren, it's not a bad thing!

I feel like she and her kids would be SO much better off if she'd just let herself grieve for both Elijah and David. It's as though she's too busy being sparkly to allow herself to feel sad or to recognize that she and the girls have experienced an enormous loss. She's still using "we" and our" on her blog, as though David is just away on business or something. It's like she doesn't even acknowledge that anything happened.

[Guest Anonymous]

Between her blog, instagram and both her facebook pages, I think she generates a substantial amount of sympathy for her own situation. I don't think she is helping herself in the best way, but it's her choice and she has a network of people there for her. It's those four lovely little girls my heart breaks for as they are not allowed to choose for themselves how to grieve and what to feel.

[August]

Did anyone else see the Facebook post about melancholy being "one of the most unattractive attitudes" this morning? Heaven forbid someone not be all sparkly on the day her husband is due in court for murdering her son. All this stuffing down of any negative emotion is ridiculous, taking control way too far. Feel sad for a couple of days, Lauren, it's not a bad thing!

Sounds like that Secret bullshit. You can run, Lauren, but you can't hide. Face it and deal with it.

[chaotic life]

I would expect he might be suffering in the manner Andrea Yates suffers. She had a complete and total psychiatric break. However, once she was stabilized, she is a perpetual suicide risk. Every day she is stable, she plots ways to kill herself for understanding what she did to her babies. However, not stable, she is not at all safe and is quite delusional, even now.

So, David was CLEARLY the better and more loving parent. He had a psychotic break, likely aided by pot, and probably some variety that told him his son was better off without them and better dead. You bring him out of that break to stabilize him, as the ONLY parent who truly loves and attends to his children, you have just alerted him to the reality that he KILLED what was most precious to him in the world--one of his children.

For every ounce of love Lauren lacks for her children, I believe David has tenfold her lack of emotions and attachment to those children. Even from a mental facility with just the tiniest of gifts, David can still touch his little girls and make them glow and feel loved in ways Lauren is completely incapable of grasping love is. I suspect, as a religious abuse survivor myself who poured my own healing in my role as a mother, that those children are David's very LIFE. Likely it was those children that brought him out of his own insane past and it was his role as a father that helped him heal. I see devotion in David that will never exist in Lauren. Lauren is cold. She has no genuine emotions. Her children are a theoretical proposition to her, one she willingly passes off to anyone and everyone willing to "share" the burden of actually interacting with them. David was different.

You bring someone like that out of the psychotic break and then inform them that the one thing that ever had meaning and value in their live died at their own hands, and you will NEVER be able to trust that person won't kill themselves the moment they catch you not watching them like a hawk.

And I don't believe Lauren cares. I think just like Rusty Yates, she'll shake the dust from her feet and find someone else capable of adoring her because if he's not present, David cannot adore her. Lauren needs people to adore her, that's what their purpose is in her life. Those girls don't do it properly, not the way David once did. She will seek another admirer sooner rather than later, once she fully grasps that David is not coming back.

[happy atheist]

I think his break might have been something along the lines of "God will never let anything bad happen as long as I have enough faith," and that he was trying to prove that by jumping into the water with Elijah. So now, not only is he responsible for the death of his own son, he's also lost his faith. He's had the rug pulled out from under him.

[lilith]

I would expect he might be suffering in the manner Andrea Yates suffers. She had a complete and total psychiatric break. However, once she was stabilized, she is a perpetual suicide risk. Every day she is stable, she plots ways to kill herself for understanding what she did to her babies. However, not stable, she is not at all safe and is quite delusional, even now.

So, David was CLEARLY the better and more loving parent. He had a psychotic break, likely aided by pot, and probably some variety that told him his son was better off without them and better dead. You bring him out of that break to stabilize him, as the ONLY parent who truly loves and attends to his children, you have just alerted him to the reality that he KILLED what was most precious to him in the world--one of his children.

For every ounce of love Lauren lacks for her children, I believe David has tenfold her lack of emotions and attachment to those children. Even from a mental facility with just the tiniest of gifts, David can still touch his little girls and make them glow and feel loved in ways Lauren is completely incapable of grasping love is. I suspect, as a religious abuse survivor myself who poured my own healing in my role as a mother, that those children are David's very LIFE. Likely it was those children that brought him out of his own insane past and it was his role as a father that helped him heal. I see devotion in David that will never exist in Lauren. Lauren is cold. She has no genuine emotions. Her children are a theoretical proposition to her, one she willingly passes off to anyone and everyone willing to "share" the burden of actually interacting with them. David was different.

You bring someone like that out of the psychotic break and then inform them that the one thing that ever had meaning and value in their live died at their own hands, and you will NEVER be able to trust that person won't kill themselves the moment they catch you not watching them like a hawk.

And I don't believe Lauren cares. I think just like Rusty Yates, she'll shake the dust from her feet and find someone else capable of adoring her because if he's not present, David cannot adore her. Lauren needs people to adore her, that's what their purpose is in her life. Those girls don't do it properly, not the way David once did. She will seek another admirer sooner rather than later, once she fully grasps that David is not coming back.

QFT.

I fully believe that as David loved those children with all his heart and was doing the best he could for them most of the time. You can't fake the genuine warmth in those videos and the way the kids lit up for him and never did for Lauren.

Not only does he have to deal with Elijah's death at his hands, he has to deal with knowing he has left his children with a cold parent who doesn't show love easily and doesn't seem to be very protective of her children.

[lilith]

I think his break might have been something along the lines of "God will never let anything bad happen as long as I have enough faith," and that he was trying to prove that by jumping into the water with Elijah. So now, not only is he responsible for the death of his own son, he's also lost his faith. He's had the rug pulled out from under him.

His faith was obviously very deep and very important to him. I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect if him losing it. My ex compared losing his faith and losing Jesus as a presence in his life to losing a parent - it devastated him and he mourned (all before I met him).

On one hand his faith may give David comfort, a surety that Elijah is in heaven and loved, maybe even a delusional justification for what he did. But on the other hand he may well feel that he must have given in to the devil to do such a horrible thing and think he's damned to hell.

I don't see David losing faith easily though, unless he comes to see it as all part of his illness and delusions.

[happy atheist]

His faith was obviously very deep and very important to him. I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect if him losing it. My ex compared losing his faith and losing Jesus as a presence in his life to losing a parent - it devastated him and he mourned (all before I met him).

On one hand his faith may give David comfort, a surety that Elijah is in heaven and loved, maybe even a delusional justification for what he did. But on the other hand he may well feel that he must have given in to the devil to do such a horrible thing and think he's damned to hell.

I don't see David losing faith easily though, unless he comes to see it as all part of his illness and delusions.

But if he was sure he was a speshul snowflake and nothing bad would happen if he jumped into the river with the baby, he might feel like god let him down.

Maybe this is a topic I shouldn't speculate about. I don't have faith, and never have, so I don't understand that mindset. It's alien to me.

[valsa]

I think his break might have been something along the lines of "God will never let anything bad happen as long as I have enough faith," and that he was trying to prove that by jumping into the water with Elijah.

The Bible features someone commanded by God to kill their own child and it's presented as a good thing when they have the faith to attempt to do so. If someone who really believes that has a breakdown (particularly one with auditory or visual hallucinations), it’s not surprising that something like this might happen. Sad but not surprising.

[lilith]

Lauren admonishes parents for parenting at a children's farm in Melbourne .

"While I join the long queue for pony rides, the girls play around the stables. I find it really interesting to be able to watch the interactions of other families, especially within such an urban setting. I saw parents admonish their children for playing in the dirt, another forbid her daughter to climb a small hill lest she fall and scrape her knee, and many that let their children roam and play freely."

Then lets Brioni do something unsafe and potentially destructive to their surroundings.

"

Brioni finds some loose bricks and starts to build a little house for her toy."

And gives Melbourne her seal of approval

"I love having the bus nearby. We broke up our visit to Collingwood Children’s Farm by returning to the bus for some food. I’m also thrilled to discover that Melbourne is not only edgy and artistic, organic and natural, but family-friendly too in many ways, like this!"

I wish she'd stop writing like she thinks she's a travel writer for the "authentic" market,

[lilith]

And since when is Melbourne "organic and natural"? It's a bloody great city, the second biggest in Australia.

[August]

Those bricks and those toes. Ugh. Ever seen a toe upon which a brick has been dropped? Or stepped by a goat?

[SiameseIfYouPlease]

The girls' feet are just so filthy.

Lauren's hung around the inner suburbs and ventured to a homeschool gathering on a beach about an hour away. And declares Melbourne "organic and natural". She hasn't seen anything yet.......... :(

My cousin has a very loose association with the homeschool group Lauren visited (currently overseas so no first hand Lauren interactions!). But my cousin has told me that the group is very posey, very look-at-me-I'm-so-organic-and-natural, while driving very large, new and expensive SUVs and sporting expensive brand name clothes. She also said it's like homeschooling is a "flavour of the month" type thing with many members.

[chaotic life]

Those bricks and those toes. Ugh. Ever seen a toe upon which a brick has been dropped? Or stepped by a goat?

Why yes I HAVE. My son spent 3 weeks in a cast when he pulled a brick that size over onto his foot WHILE BEING WATCHED and split the bone in his big toe lengthwise. It was not a pretty picture and the only reason it happened was because no one realized he had the strength to move a brick that was leaned against a wall outward. Grown adults couldn't move it, no one thought the toddler could. We were wrong and he paid the price.

It's NOT pretty, ftr. I could dig out some pictures if you want, but it's not pretty at all, nor where his desperate screams of PAIN as we comforted him and ran him to the ER.

[leggajegga]

Why yes I HAVE. My son spent 3 weeks in a cast when he pulled a brick that size over onto his foot WHILE BEING WATCHED and split the bone in his big toe lengthwise. It was not a pretty picture and the only reason it happened was because no one realized he had the strength to move a brick that was leaned against a wall outward. Grown adults couldn't move it, no one thought the toddler could. We were wrong and he paid the price.

It's NOT pretty, ftr. I could dig out some pictures if you want, but it's not pretty at all, nor where his desperate screams of PAIN as we comforted him and ran him to the ER.

Such things never happen to the sparkling one. And were a brick to fall on someone's toes, they would meet an all-natural drummer/medicine man who could patch it up using leaves, dirt, and one of Lauren's crocheted flowers. It would be a fabulous opportunity to make a new friendship and share authentic conversations about the evils of taking proper care of your children.

[truthseeker]

Those bricks and those toes. Ugh. Ever seen a toe upon which a brick has been dropped? Or stepped by a goat?

Or walked through a pile of animal dung? Or stepped on a nail or used syringe? Collingwood Children's Farm is a beautiful place in the middle of the city - but full of as many hazards for bare feet as any other farm, and perhaps even more due it's location.

[happy atheist]

I could dig out some pictures if you want.

I will pay you not to.

[happy atheist]

I'm surprised they were allowed to ride the ponies with bare feet.

Lauren has become staggeringly awful. Can you imagine having a conversation with her? According to her "in brief" she's rethinking everything. Well, you know what Lauren? Some things don't need to be rethought.

I'd like to think that if a brink did squish a kid's foot that she'd wise up and become a more-involved parent. But she's already had a baby die. This is a woman who knows that bad things happen, and that her family is not immune.

She's a fuckwit.

[August]

I will pay you not to.

I'll pay you to send them to Lauren.

At least CPS would have made sure their tetanus was up to date.

I'd like to see her rethink the appalling safety hazards she ignores. That pic of the little head popping up over the edge of the roof gives me chills. Grown adults die every day from ladder falls. (15 July 2010, when they were about 5 and 6 1/2. If you google images sparkling adventures ladder you an see it without clicking through.

[August]

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<------ Ironically, my children are stacked in bunks right this very minute. Unfortunately for their immortal souls, there's so much headroom they could kneel up if so inclined.

[Wolfie]

Or walked through a pile of animal dung? Or stepped on a nail or used syringe? Collingwood Children's Farm is a beautiful place in the middle of the city - but full of as many hazards for bare feet as any other farm, and perhaps even more due it's location.

This. I live on a 1 acre mini farm. I do not go barefoot outside of my house or deck. Shoes on at all times, even if they are just flip flops, and usually shoes with thicker soles. There is just too much I could step on. AND my tetanus shot is up to date. (oh yeah, the previous owner was a contractor with a backhoe that he used to bury garbage in the yard.)

[ThatSnark]

My family and I visited a goat farm a few weeks back to see the cute new baby goats. (squee!!) We all wore knee-high muck boots that needed hosing down at home. It would have been disgusting to walk through the barns without solid footwear, because that's not mud you're stepping in. Blech.

[BoomerLynn]

I wish she'd stop writing like she thinks she's a travel writer for the "authentic" market,

QFT. You have put to words exactly what it is about her writing style that annoys me so much.