Seewalds 22 - Funerals and Embryo Cake

[Fun Undies]

6 hours ago, Exposedknees said:

A long time ago my ex sister-in-law and her husband got their placentas and planted a tree over each one. I noticed at a birthday party a few years later that firstborn's tree had died....I didn't mention it but thought to myself that it t might be some kind of weird karma.  The firstborn is okay btw. Evidently planting a placenta tree was a thing....?

I'm not exactly sure which cultures do it, but I have read about it as a "baby tradition" in some places around the world.  I've also heard people then going on to cutting down the tree when the child reaches adulthood and making a gift out of the wood.

ETA according to parents.com, the najavo Indians and Maori (sp?) Tribe of australia, both buried the placenta.  Possibly to prevent attracting animals near their houses/camps with fresh/raw/bloody organs

ETA 2 according to wiki (so take it with a grain of salt, since I didn't click on the source links) under the search term, "placenta", it states that several Asian and some south American countries bury the placenta as well.

[SassyPants]

Filipinos? I think they bury placentas in the Phillipines.

[Karma]

Just FYI @Fun Undies, Maori people are from New Zealand, not Australia. Although there are a lot living here. 

[Fun Undies]

7 hours ago, Karma said:

Just FYI @Fun Undies, Maori people are from New Zealand, not Australia. Although there are a lot living here. 

Thank you for the clarification!!  I must of misread the article ~ my apologies to the Maori ♡

[Wenny]

I know people here in Texas buried it or use it for the crops (ewwww) 

[WhoompThereItIs]

On 5/1/2017 at 8:41 PM, Carm_88 said:

Jessa comparing Spurgeon and Henry to her and Ben. I think that Henry definitely looks a lot like Ben. Although there is definitely some Duggar in there as well. We've always known who Spurgeon looks like. 

Every time I see this picture of Henry, it reminds me of this baby

ETA: screen shot of the video below

[melon]

I have another friend, 5 children,attachment parenting,exclusive breastfeeding,baby led weaning.She and I met when we took our oldest to a Mom-Tot swimming class.Our two oldest,both boys,are within two months of each other,we both had our second child ,within two months of each other.She told me after the second child's birth she had saved her placenta and planted a fruit tree.I have no idea if she did that with all 

5 children

 

 

[Yes, TOTALLY]

19 hours ago, Fun Undies said:

I'm not exactly sure which cultures do it, but I have read about it as a "baby tradition" in some places around the world.  I've also heard people then going on to cutting down the tree when the child reaches adulthood and making a gift out of the wood.

ETA according to parents.com, the najavo Indians and Maori (sp?) Tribe of australia, both buried the placenta.  Possibly to prevent attracting animals near their houses/camps with fresh/raw/bloody organs

ETA 2 according to wiki (so take it with a grain of salt, since I didn't click on the source links) under the search term, "placenta", it states that several Asian and some south American countries bury the placenta as well.

Maori people (and a lot of Pacific Island cultures) bury their children's placentas at their marae (tribal meeting house) or at a family home. It is thought to keep the child connected to their ancestral land (whenua) and their tribe (iwi).  In New Zealand it is really normal to take home your placenta. 

[Rachel333]

I don't know how common it is, but there's also a Māori tradition of burying other items removed from the body, like hair after being cut. If I'm remembering correctly (when I studied in NZ I took a course on Māori culture from a Māori professor) it's because there's a belief that sorcerers could use items like hair or nail clippings to harm the person they came from.

[missegeno]

I once met someone who claimed to be a cannibal because she had eaten placenta. It made me want to as well.

[apandaaries]

When my daughter was born, we requested the placenta.  There was no charge. The hospital put it in a plastic bag, then into a large plastic bucket with a lid.  They told us we should freeze it when we got home if we weren't going to do anything with it immediately. I wanted my ex to plant a tree over it.  He did, but it took a couple months.  So during that time, when we had a number of visitors, we had to explain the frozen placenta whenever someone used the freezer.  It was frequently mistaken for ice cream, which led to some weird reactions.  Now there's an olive tree growing over the placenta.  I'd read about some cultures doing that, and I just didn't really want to have the hospital throw it away.  

[fluffernutter]

The Amish around here bury their placentas. It's collected in a bucket and then taken out to be buried once it's been examined. It's not symbolic of anything special, just the most practical way to get rid of it. 

[Georgiana]

I have to say, I love "old babies", and H. Wilburforce Seewald looks like he came out of the womb already enrolled in AARP. 90% sure his first words are going to be yelling at Spud to get off his lawn. 

I love it. What a cutie.

[PennySycamore]

@amandaaries,  a placenta in the freezer is no more weird (less weird, now that I think of it) than the several dead gerbils/hamsters and kitten we've had in ours.  The pets had died and it was going to be a few days before my husband could bury them.  I did not want to just throw their little bodies out with the garbage.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

On 5/4/2017 at 8:31 AM, Wenny said:

I know people here in Texas buried it or use it for the crops (ewwww) 

Honestly, I'm less grossed out by using it for crops than I am of just eating it.  If if think about it it isn't any more gross than growing food in manure.  We aren't EATING shit or placenta it just helped the food grow. 

[wikinggirl]

18 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@amandaaries,  a placenta in the freezer is no more weird (less weird, now that I think of it) than the several dead gerbils/hamsters and kitten we've had in ours.  The pets had died and it was going to be a few days before my husband could bury them.  I did not want to just throw their little bodies out with the garbage.

We had hamsters and guinea pigs in the freezer for months when I was a kid, because they always seemed to die in the winter when the ground was frozen so they couldn't be buried.

My friend thinks they still have a guinea pig in the freezer, it's been dead for 15 years... 

[calimojo]

While I like that Jessa is breaking with cult tradition and cutting Spurgeon's hair,  I am surprised as he really does look like a little girl.  I kind of think that Jessa, who I find to be rather narcissistic gets off on the fact that he is her doppelgänger and keeps his hair that long as it really emphasizes their resemblance. 

 

Henry just looks like a generic baby to me.  I don't see a big resemblance to baby Ben in those side by side shots, but I think as he grows he will tend to favor the Seewald side more than the Duggar side.  Hopefully he will look like Guinn as she is very pretty.  None of the Seewald kids got her looks, imo.  Ben used to be kind of cute, but to me his looks have faded since marriage and fatherhood.  And he has the same dead in the eye look that most of the Duggar siblings have.  Just shows that spending time around JB and M is soul sucking.

 

I truly hope that Jessa and Ben break from the cult before Spurgeon's spark goes out.  That kid has so much light and life in his eyes and it will be heartbreaking to see him get that deadeyed look that so many of them have.  Hannie has it now.  Jordyn seems to in some pics as well.  And in a recent picth that I saw of Mac,  she looks very sad and the life had left her eyes.  She always seemed to have a bright and lively personality. 

[singsingsing]

Spurgeon doesn't look at all like a little girl to me... he looks like a little boy with curly hair. If that were my child, you couldn't pay me to cut it, either. It's adorable.

[calimojo]

20 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Spurgeon doesn't look at all like a little girl to me... he looks like a little boy with curly hair. If that were my child, you couldn't pay me to cut it, either. It's adorable.

I hope you understood from my post that I wasn't advocating a hair cut for Spurgeon.  I kept my little boy's hair long like that for a long time because I knew his curls wouldn't come back after cutting. 

But pictured next to Jessa's baby picture, he could pass for a little girl.  That is neither an insult or a compliment, just an observation of mine.  And knowing how important it is in this cult for boys to be boys and girls to be girls, it just surprises me that Jessa hasn't felt the need to cut his hair yet so that no one would ever mistake him for a girl.  I mean, this is the family that uses ridiculous fake pigtail headbands on their baby girls so no one ever mistakes them for boys.   And remember how quickly Michelle took clippers to poor Izzy? 

 

So if keeping her baby's hair long is a slight form of resistance against the very rigid gender roles and rules on appearance she was raised with, then that is a good thing.  Just like if Jinger wears pants, that is, in some small way a break from the rules they were raised with.  It doesn't mean they are changing their beliefs, but it is a tiny, ever so tiny,  crack in the dam.  And, eventually, those small cracks and variances from what they have been told will become bigger.  We already see that most of the middle Duggar boys wear shorts now and then.  So again, another very small break from their tradition.    Every break, no matter how small is a good sign. 

 

 

[Mela99]

Anyone else see the thread title and immediately think of STFU Parents and the infamous 'selfish bitch cake'? 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[ViolaSebastian]

As a U.K. alumna, nothing will ever beat this cakewreck for me...

 

[Carm_88]

The armadillo cake from Steel Magnolias.  Bad cakes shall forever remind me of that!

 

 

[QuiverFullofBooks]

1 hour ago, ViolaSebastian said:

As a U.K. alumna, nothing will ever beat this cakewreck for me...

 

Is that supposed to be the University of Kentucky's mascot?

[ViolaSebastian]

36 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Is that supposed to be the University of Kentucky's mascot?

Yes indeed. It is hilariously tragic. 

 

[PennySycamore]

@ViolaSebastian,  OMG!  That poor Wildcat!  

@Carm_88,  M'Lynn remarks at Truvy's that the cake has gray icing and she doesn't know how somebody would make gray icing.  I don't think it would be hard.  Somebody just needs to fool around with food coloring more.  Wilton may even sell gray food coloring for all I know.  I'm not going to check though.