Seewalds 25: Jessa is allowing Spurgeon to "jump for joy", er, dance

[Jenn The Heathen]

I like to imagine Jana escaping to that garden when she needs to relax after taking care of her parents' house and children all day.

[Calypso]

5 hours ago, habert said:

speculating on every photo is annoying, but the way Jessa is holding this bouquet caught my eye and seems unnatural. I dunno I don't think she's been looking pregnant lately, but anyway I noticed this. 

I agree. Thats the first thing i noticed when i saw the picture. Its an unnatural arm placement and looks like shes purposefully trying to cover her midsection. I wasnt speculating she was preggo before but i am now 

[Chewing Gum]

Or Jessa is still insecure about belly fat (which is to be expected after two pregnancies), and wouldn't want speculation over that. After I lost #3,4,5 I gained weight so I did that too. Just throwing it out there as a possibility. 

[HurricaneBells]

On Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 3:11 AM, justoneoftwo said:

Really?  I say this about my 17 month old.  He has developed a will recently, being very sure what he wants when he wants it.  I say it as a good thing but its totally true.

Word. I have a threenager and oh lord yes children are wilful. The difference between us and them is that we dont plan to beat it out of them. Its. What. They. Do. Looking at you Jim Bob and Michelle!

[TatiFish9]

On 9/13/2017 at 11:16 AM, singsingsing said:

Nah, I think Derick would've blamed his son for his willfulness and 'sin nature'. All the while conveniently forgetting that he himself tried to run over a cat with his sled.

Jessa coyly blamed Jeremy. Then she insinuated that he needed to get away from the water less he throw the child in...

 

 

 

[LacyMay]

10 hours ago, habert said:

 

speculating on every photo is annoying, but the way Jessa is holding this bouquet caught my eye and seems unnatural. I dunno I don't think she's been looking pregnant lately, but anyway I noticed this. 

The placement of the bouquet is odd, but it could be any number of things  (not wanting to block the boy to the right, self conscious etc as others pointed out) 

It also looks like just an awkward sized bouquet to hold (sort of wide and fluffy) and she might just be trying to avoid holding it too high or low.

That said I wouldn't be surprised if she was expecting.

[AtlanticTug]

15 hours ago, Calypso said:

I agree. Thats the first thing i noticed when i saw the picture. Its an unnatural arm placement and looks like shes purposefully trying to cover her midsection. I wasnt speculating she was preggo before but i am now 

I immediately said on the thread where the photos were posted that she was knocked up. I actually had thought she was before, not really sure why. Gut feeling. 

[singsingsing]

Nothing about Jessa's recent pictures seems really suggestive of pregnancy to me, but she does tend to coyly start hiding her stomach when she gets pregnant, so you guys may be onto something. And if she follows the same sort of timeline she did last time... then yep, she's already pregnant. Guess we'll know for sure at some point.  

[JesSky03]

I was actually thinking both Jessa and Jana looked thinner in the wedding pics. 

[Carm_88]

I assure you that I do awkward bouquet placement and I'm nowhere near pregnant, just self conscious. 

However, like everyone is stating, it is on schedule. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

I've been thinking (with no rational explanation whatsoever) that she's pregnant for the past 4-5 weeks. 

[Gillyweed]

I feel like she just gave birth to Henry! It'd be crazy if she was pregnant already

[The Wanderer]

6 minutes ago, Gillyweed said:

I feel like she just gave birth to Henry! It'd be crazy if she was pregnant already

If she is pregnant, the timing would be pretty close to the spacing between Spurgeon and Henry. It just seems like less time has passed since she gave birth to Henry this year.

Personally, I think she could be pregnant at this point but it would be so early she may not even know yet herself. I'm predicting an announcement in November on her anniversary or Spurgeon's birthday.

[Rachel333]

If she conceived #3 as soon as she conceived Henry after Spurgeon then she would have conceived in August and would be around 6 weeks pregnant right now.

[PennySycamore]

On 9/10/2017 at 10:57 PM, SassyPants said:

Anecdotally, I worked in a very large NICU during my childbearing years(20 years). There were probably 60 females nurses working there during my tenure. I can say there were 10 nurses who developed breast CA during that time (SF Bay Area, high BC rate) and every single one was a nurse who had BF her child or children for  an extended period time. This made me scratch my head.  I know that for many years, EBF was supposed to be a protection against getting breast cancer. As a healthcare professional I truly wonder...

There are good studies that show that women who breastfeed DO have a lower risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer, but it is dose related.  A little nursing reduces the risk a little, but to have a noticeable reduction in risk the mother needs to have breastfed for a year or more.  I nursed my five for a total of 13 1/2 years.

[just_ordinary]

Not to forget that reducing a risk is not the same as eliminating the risk entirely. You can smoke you whole life and get to be very old and healthy and you can never smoke at all and die from lung cancer. A risk factor says nothing about if you really will fall ill or not, just that it is more likely.

[QuiverFullofBooks]

Back to the biscuits and gravy thread drift. This is the half chicken fried steak from Susan's Restaurant in Springdale. It comes with biscuits and gravy. I ate my biscuit with butter and jelly because there's already gravy on the steak. That was yesterday.

This morning I ate breakfast at the La Quinta where I'm staying. They had a Crock Pot of gravy to go with the biscuits. That's not something I've seen at any other La Quinta! They did have waffles, as La Quinta always does, and the waffle iron put the Razorbacks logo on the waffle.

[JordynDarby5]

1 hour ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

Back to the biscuits and gravy thread drift. This is the half chicken fried steak from Susan's Restaurant in Springdale. It comes with biscuits and gravy. I ate my biscuit with butter and jelly because there's already gravy on the steak. That was yesterday.

This morning I ate breakfast at the La Quinta where I'm staying. They had a Crock Pot of gravy to go with the biscuits. That's not something I've seen at any other La Quinta! They did have waffles, as La Quinta always does, and the waffle iron put the Razorbacks logo on the waffle.

That looks really good!

[Feminist_Defrauder91]

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 10:32 AM, cascarones said:

Does having more women make a significant difference? I'm truly curious, I had used mother's, given the large gender disparity in my field. I'd likely be the only occupant/user of said room, so it would never be a priority to do above what's legally required. Heck, one of my old offices had so few women that by law the bathrooms got messed up. So there would a mens' room right next to a mens' room where the ladies' room would be, with only one ladies' room near the entrance.

Oh I'm not sure!  I just used the plural for convenience's sake, haha.  But I'd assume(?) if there was at least one woman you'd need a clean, private place for pumping in states where they're legally required.

[calimojo]

Thinking about Jessa mentioning a move to Laredo and I think this is just a teaser, just like 'could it be twins' or "we really have a heart for adoption". 

I think Jessa  has pretty much had nothing but rewards for her lifestyle in the last several years.  I have no doubts that her earlier childhood, living in a too small house, hiding from Josh, etc, had rough spots, but really since they moved, to the TTH,  I think Jessa's life improved. 

And now she is the face of the brand for the next generation.  She has a strong social media presence, is making good money,  had a free house for a few years, has childcare, cars, a job for her husband, and so on.  I just don't really see a lot of motivation for the two of them to consider moving away from her home.  I suspect that even if they lived close to Jeremy and Jinger, that Jeremy has an established group of friends, and he and Jinger are embedded in this.  I don't see Jinger being as willing to help with childcare responsibility endlessly, and I think Jeremy would forbid it on a regular basis because Jeremy likes Jinger's attention on him. 

IN reality,  there just isn't a whole lot to motivate most of these kids to leave the cult.  They lead a comfortable life now.  Good place to live, plenty to eat, few responsibilities, umbrella of protection under JB, Financial stability courtesy of TLC and JB.  Cars, planes, free homes, etc.  I don't think a lot of kids would walk away from that, and especially kids who have limited education and no job experience outside of working for daddy. 

Jessa is a capable woman, but I also think she is just fine taking the path of least resistanct.  Even if she is having some cognitive discord between how she is raised and her current life, I just don't see the motivation to really explore that.  While I think Jessa is smart, I don't think she is a seeker of knowledge or a deep thinker.  I think she is one of those people who can learn well, do well on a topic, but not ever feel the need to scratch the surface and look at the whys, and why nots of a situation.  Ben may be more inclined to do that, and when he does, I imagine it frustrates Jessa because she doesn't see the point. 

Still, there are small things she has done that are clearly different from her upbringing, so she is either consciously rejecting some aspects, or it is just the result of her increasing worldliness as the family has gone a bit more mainstream in some ways.    I appreciate Jessa for not always keeping sweet, and she does seem to enjoy being a mom.  I feel badly for her that after one or two more kids, she will be faced with having to adopt Pearl or other strict methods in order to keep her house in order because otherwise, she will be surrounded by chaos.  And I really hate that she is so quickly willing to sell out her children to public life.  THere have been times in the past, when Jessa's annoyance at living a public life were noticeable, and I am sad that she hasn't done more to protect her children from that.  She is committed to the brand.  Her children are just a price to pay to keep that admiration and popularity coming her way.

 

 

[AnnEggBlandHer?]

4 hours ago, calimojo said:

I feel badly for her that after one or two more kids, she will be faced with having to adopt Pearl or other strict methods in order to keep her house in order because otherwise, she will be surrounded by chaos

Wholeheartedly agree with your line of thought above, except this one sentence. There are plenty of large families who function without abusing their kids! And if she does resort to her family's traditional 'discipline,' I feel much worse for her kids than I do for her. 

[PainfullyAware]

I wonder if Sierra and some of the other younger Moms use more mainstream parental discipline and how that might change Jessa's choices. I've never seen any indication Sierra uses blanket training for example although she's not likely to advertise that fact either. If Jessa has examples that 5-kids-under-age-7  can be managed without the Pearles, that could help. 

Ben may also be against it and he obviously thinks for himself (ex. not voting for Trump). His parents probably didn't blanket train. He probably doesn't think his in-laws are bad parents but maybe old-fashioned.

[nausicaa]

On 9/14/2017 at 1:43 PM, Palimpsest said:

However, my very favorite statistics are in the Botkin Homeschool Drop Outs film.  There is a lovely and encouraging series of talking heads at the beginning, as the 2nd Gen sycophants despairingly claim that only 1% or 2% of their generation will stay as Godly and Homeschooling as their parents.  Would that were true!

So, as a glutton for punishment, I played this whole documentary in the background at work. At 32:30, a Botkin son says "Our parents educated us so we could be scientists, statesmen, world leaders."

Um...how's that working for you, Botkins?

As much as I eye roll at these kids' solipsistic arrogance, I also feel kinda bad for them. How do you live up to the expectations of Geoff Botkin, when he's telling you you're destined to lead the world? And how on earth did he expect his kids to be leading scientists with zero college education?

I do lose some sympathy when he goes on to say that home-school kids often take the lazy approach by taking a liberal-arts education (does he even know what that means? Or does his brain short circuit at the word "liberal"?) or becoming "wage-slaves." I'd really like this entitled little snit to explain to me what exactly a "wage-slave" is.

[Palimpsest]

38 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

I also feel kinda bad for them.

You do have to feel sorry for them.   But they have grown up into right little arrogant asshats, still wallow in the kool-aid, and still spew toxins on the world.  Just less successfully than they used to when VF was still going strong.  Geoff and Western Conservatory are barely hanging on, I think.

"Wage-slave" undoubtedly means being employed by someone other than the "right kind of Christian" or a family member.  I don't follow the Botkins closely but some of them are involved in T-Rex Arms (makes fancy holsters for guns) with Lucas. I have no idea how well the company does. The others seem to be doing web-design or writing.  The glory days are over.

I'm sure Geoff still thinks they will take over the world though.  

Here is the wonderful Katie Botkin (not in the least like Uncle Geoff and her cousins) talking about the family.

https://kbotkin.com/2007/11/02/on-daughters-college-and-nouveau-patriarchy/

https://kbotkin.com/2012/09/21/in-honor-of-my-grandfather/

[snickers34]

5 hours ago, nausicaa said:

I'd really like this entitled little snit to explain to me what exactly a "wage-slave" is.

I think it's the idea of working for anyone else but their family - the whole movement around working for yourself so you don't have to work for a woman or heathen, etc. Because all the doctors, nurses, police officers, people who run our banks/grocery stores/etc, and every single other service that they utilize either daily or as needed are going to hell. But they're not above utilizing the real world's services when they need it, of course. Kind of like how the scientific community is valid when it saves their kids' lives, but not the rest of the time.