Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect: Whee! Polyamory

[Mango]

Rats are way more heat sensitive than dogs. :( They're a horrible choice for someone living on the road.

[Vex]

I used to have rats and hung out on Australian rat forums, and not desexing your rats if they're all one sex and live in a cage was very common and not necessarily irresponsible at all. There are advantages to desexing, but they need to be weighed against the risks of general anaesthetic - both because rats are so much smaller than cats and dogs, but also because vets often don't know/remember really basic things about rat medical care (things like "don't withhold food before surgery, they're not physically able to vomit and the lack of calories will affect their recovery.")

Which isn't to say that I think Lauren's a responsible rat owner. I doubt she's getting them vet care at all, a good rat vet or otherwise. I doubt she's looked into the major diseases that affect pet rats in Australia, and what to watch for. They don't seem to have a cage. I haven't been following her blog closely, so I don't know what she feeds them, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess it's not a balanced rat diet.

The breeder she went to gives out care sheets that talk about things like illness. She's a very responsible breeder (although I can't help but think Lauren didn't show her the cage or necessarily mention they lived on a bus throughout the summer).

My greatest hope is that none of these rats actually run away during runaway time, that their good breeding means that they don't get myco, and by some miracle none of the girls develop mammary tumors in old age. You know that Lauren would either ignore or put to sleep rather than get the poor thing surgery. Putting rats to sleep almost always means injecting a needle into their hearts but she wouldn't know that of course. I hope they life long and miraculously healthy lives.

It looks like they don't even give the rats bedding but I think maybe those fleece blankets are put in the cages. Lauren, seriously, just get a bag of breeder's choice. That cage is extremely tiny (also it's a mouse cage). My single rat has a larger sleep cage and he free ranges at least 12 hours a day.

[happy atheist]

So, Vex, since you seem to be something of an expert: How trainable are rats? Will they learn their names? Will they come when called? Can they follow commands?

Do they have to have appropriate things to chew on to keep their teeth under control?

I don't see myself ever getting a pet rat, but I'm suddenly curious about them.

[already hungover]

My greatest hope is that none of these rats actually run away during runaway time, that their good breeding means that they don't get myco, and by some miracle none of the girls develop mammary tumors in old age. You know that Lauren would either ignore or put to sleep rather than get the poor thing surgery. Putting rats to sleep almost always means injecting a needle into their hearts but she wouldn't know that of course. I hope they life long and miraculously healthy lives.

Considering the way she behaved when their dog was so conveniently poisoned, I somehow doubt that she'd bother with humane euthanasia for a sick or aged rattie.

[lipstickgoalie]

Am I the only one who gets nervous when the Sparkling One fails to post for more than a day or two?

[chaotic life]

She has a long-long standing habit of post dumping after weeks of silence. She'll show back up at some point and fill in all the blanks, as if there was never a gap in the blog at all.

She's still posting on FB and Instagram. It's when those go silent as well that I start to worry, personally.

[happy atheist]

I don't have the time or energy to follow her on Facebook or twitter or whathaveyou. I count on FJ to keep me posted on her when the blog is dark.

[chaotic life]

I do too, sort of. When someone here mentions she's gone dark, I just follow the links from her website to check and see if she's still posting those other places.

[flubber]

She's developing a tendency to end on a 'wow is me post' before going MIA for a while. Sympathy garnering?

[happy atheist]

She's developing a tendency to end on a 'wow is me post' before going MIA for a while. Sympathy garnering?

More likely trolling for donations.

[sockiemom]

I read ALL the threads. (Annoying to brag, I know, but a proud accomplishment all the same.) ;-) Lauren seems to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, maybe with a bit of borderline, histrionic, and sociopath thrown in, Cluster B, to me. Not to be confused with the also applicable cluster f(uck).

Her main objective to me seems to be to obtain and replenish her narcissistic supply. Anything that fills up her ego, and demonstrates she's a super-human, better, smarter, than anyone else. I'm sure her baby's death was sad, but it gives her endless narcissitic supply. Which is why she'll never stop talking about it, her loss, her triumph over adversity.

FJ gives her lovely supply. Why - she is so lovely, and amazing, and powerful OF COURSE people from all over the world talk about her. NATURALLY her thread is the longest on FJ. She just inspires that sort of passion in people.

And the haters? Well you EXPECT people to be jealous when you're so awesome. Martyrdom just comes with the territory.

I feel for her children. NPD parent is terribly damaging to children. I'm sure among her children she has a golden child and a scapegoat, and they are all trained to anticipate what she needs for supply and give it to her. Or the wrath - silent treatment, cruelty, gaslighting, sorrow, obfuscation, and rage. Those children are supposed to make her feel good! She is such a wonderful mother, after all.

If David was already psychologically vulnerable (and being raised in a cult, well, duh) I'm not surprised he lost his mind with her. NPDs can make the completely sane think they are going crazy.

[miffy]

Another parent using Minecraft as an educational tool....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sage-field

[AuntCloud]

Cloudlet #2 would trade anything to be able to play Minecraft all day. Unfortunately her cruel inauthentic parents make her go to school, despite her preference of Minecraft over French and despite her ADD which makes school a challenge for everyone. Yes, it would certainly be easy to just let it go. Not gonna happen, not in a million years.

[niagarahauls]

Cloudlet #2 would trade anything to be able to play Minecraft all day. Unfortunately her cruel inauthentic parents make her go to school, despite her preference of Minecraft over French and despite her ADD which makes school a challenge for everyone. Yes, it would certainly be easy to just let it go. Not gonna happen, not in a million years.

Heck, my kids would be happy to watch YouTube videos of other people playing Minecraft all day if left to their own devices.

[Chicken bones]

The Red One has been very quiet lately online; from one of her rare tweets lately, I have to wonder what's happened.

When life is disappointing, it's my old nemesis: Unrealistic Expectations. I still don't know how to consciously balance Reality with Hope.

Breakup? Something going on with David's case? Nosy strangers want to know!

Her other recent tweet about not teaching her children Stranger Danger...I read the blog she quoted and it kind of seemed reasonable to me; however since her girls aren't in enough routine environments to have a neighbor or creepy relative or teacher around, the rationale the blog writer uses doesn't totally fit. Lauren's children are more likely to be exposed to potential dangerous strangers when camping in random spots and mom is blogging to all and sundry how to find their campsites.

[Dysfundamental]

"Stranger Danger" would be a pretty hollow lesson for children whose father killed their brother, and whose mother neglects them and leaves them with strangers all the time.

[lipstickgoalie]

I loathe this woman. She posted something about staying in a house for two weeks being such a treat. You OWN A HOUSE you sparkling whack job. God I just want to punch her in her crackers sometimes.

[flubber]

I loathe this woman. She posted something about staying in a house for two weeks being such a treat. You OWN A HOUSE you sparkling whack job. God I just want to punch her in her crackers sometimes.

Surely being pleased to stay in a house is not very sparkling, shouldn't she be embracing the nomadic life all the time if she really is authentic?

[Blahblah]

There's an Instagram pic of Calista from about 3 weeks ago and Sparkles has captioned it "Cali-Mae...". Is she changing yet another name?

[ILoveJellybeans]

Mae might be a middle name? I don't know whether she has mentioned middle names of any of the kids before-except for Elijah Rainbow obviously.

[flubber]

Mae might be a middle name? I don't know whether she has mentioned middle names of any of the kids before-except for Elijah Rainbow obviously.

sparklingadventures.com/index.php?id=239

Before they changed it to Calista with one L

[So Many Lies]

Yeah, my eyebrow raised a little when I saw that Cali-Mae thing, although I guess it could be some kind of pet name. I will have a look back at the post where the name changed from Callista to Calista but I'm sure I don't recall that as a middle name. Maybe it will morph into Mae and then she'll have Lana and Mae. Nothing is ever definate or solid with them. It's funny, isn't it?

[So Many Lies]

Sorry flubber, I didn't read your post properly.

[flubber]

Sorry flubber, I didn't read your post properly.

:naughty: :naughty:

Hehe...but I have my doubts if the post is in it's original form. It's the first time I can recall her refering to Cali as Cali-Mae.

[So Many Lies]

:naughty: :naughty:

Hehe...but I have my doubts if the post is in it's original form. It's the first time I can recall her refering to Cali as Cali-Mae.

Well maybe. I revisited that Callista post recently while I was reading the Aicha post among other things. Do you really think she'd scrub/change that kind of thing?