truebluesmoky

They also sell plastic, disposable, adhesive baby placemats for use in restaurants... not that I’m personally advocating for more plastic in our landfills, but the Duggars don’t care about that sort of thing.

I don’t think getting excited about trash/recycling pick-up means they’re bored. It IS a cool thing to watch, especially for kids that young. When my boys were about Spurge and Henry’s ages, they would watch any truck doing anything. The highlight of their spring one year was when their grandparents had a pool put in... not the finished product, but watching the trucks do all the work of digging the hole. In general, I’m not sure what else Jessa could be expected to do to entertain three young children. She has all kinds of play equipment in the backyard, a house full of books that they seem to enjoy, and a decent selection of toys . She lets then ride little bikes in the house and has them help her make smoothies and do other cooking. She brings them to the big house to play with aunts and cousins. I feel like they have a pretty good day-to-day life.

Yes, but it's been purported to be a sham marriage for immigration reasons. Apparently it was a secret marriage that didn't come out until Allison's legal proceedings.

Nicki Clyne is actually married to Allison Mack, for anyone who didn’t know.

Charity Diana Serenity Diana

Regarding Claire seeming outspoken and perhaps having a dominant personality, it makes sense to me that the four youngest boys (Jason, James, Justin, and Jackson) would seek out women to be in charge of them. The oldest boys were never quite as entrenched in the sister moms/buddy system, at least not for as long. The youngest 4 boys are completely used to being submissive to one of the older girls, and they don’t have the same independent, confident qualities of their older brothers. I also don’t think JB focused as much on making sure they had “manly skills.” They truly were just howlers running wild in the house, waiting for their sister mom to tell them what to do. That’s what they’ll seek out for wives. The jury’s out for me on the twins... maybe they’ll live together in their Ernie and Bert bedroom forever.

Cousin Amy pulls into the lead in the cutest Duggar offspring contest... https://www.instagram.com/p/CG5YtCmpeOj/?igshid=toe44pveang4

Is it possible she’s keeping it hush until a future episode about it airs?

Are these being released once a week? Which day? Trying to see if I can watch them all during free trials. 😂

I agree about the good pictures. The photo of the boys grinning on Derick’s back while Jill smiles at the three of them is the best family photo I’ve ever seen of them. Hope she frames it! Also, I appreciate every outing her sisters have with her, every coffee Jessa brings her, and every daughter-in-law who wants her at their birth to be a little FU to JimBob and Michelle, and that makes ME smile.

The scene I can’t get out my my head is when they are singing happy birthday to Cece at her party when Shanann and the girls were in North Carolina. Cece is looking at Shanann with complete adoration, and Shanann is looking at her the same way, while Bella is looking at both of them with a face full of love. It was being filmed of course, but it didn’t feel staged or showy. It was just pure love between a mother and her daughters. It haunts me.

With regard to Sarah’s brand, even though I definitely agree that she seems a little extra and like the theatre people I went to college with who I couldn’t be around for very long without getting exhausted, I don’t think we can blame her for her brand getting shown in every episode. It’s not like she knew how all the footage they were taking would be used in various episodes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was frequently asked to show it because the branding is the most sensational aspect of the NXIVM story. One of the aspects of this whole thing that is funny to me is that the headquarters for all this nonsense was Clifton Park, NY. For those not familiar with New York State, Albany is the capital but it’s not a particularly large or cultured city. It’s a good three hours north of New York City, and aside from the capital buildings and some good colleges, there’s not much to brag about in the downtown area, and the surrounding area is all Targets and Olive Gardens. Clifton Park is about twenty minutes north of downtown Albany. It’s the kind of place you move to if you want to raise your kids in a McMansion with good schools and organic grocery stores nearby. The neighborhood where Keith and Allison and many other members had their houses wasn’t historic homes like Frank’s Parlato’s house across the state in Buffalo or even a neighborhood of aforementioned McMansions. It was a community of attached townhouses. When they weren’t in the townhouses, they were walking around the neighborhood or in the sweaty gymnasium playing volleyball. What was the appeal to everyone who moved there to be at the epicenter of NXIVM? It’s not like the fancy Scientology church in Hollywood or the Scientology centers by the beach in Clearwater. It’s an attached townhouse in a suburban area with terrible weather and near no major cities that their celebrity members would be accustomed to. How he sold them on Clifton Park will remain one of the biggest mysteries to me!

I am on board with Taylor Dayne for the Popcorn, Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black for the Snow Owls, and Leann Rimes for the Sun.

One lie I thought was weird was Chris saying they had sex. What did that serve him in terms of his story or his image? It’s mentioned in this documentary that Shanann’s “signal” for wanting sex is showering at night and coming to bed naked, and it’s mentioned elsewhere that Shanann was super into cleanliness, to the point where she thought of sex as messy. There is no way she had sex with him if her body was found in the same clothes she had worn on the plane. She wouldn’t have even gone to sleep in those clothes if he hadn’t drugged her drink, let alone had sex and then put them back on.

Mark is on Leah Remini and Mike Rinder’s Scientology: Fair Game podcast this week. I just started listening.

I can never fully snark on Jessa and Ben, because their kids are a delight. They seem so happy and even thankful, kind, protective of one another, well spoken (in Spurgeon’s case), and cooperative. I may roll my eyes at Amazing Grace being their road trip song of choice, but if that’s making them happy and creating a memory that Spurgeon happily recalls in his talking head, more power to them. I do hope they stop having kids soon. Spurgeon seems naturally helpful, good natured, and sensible. A lot of pressure will end up being put on him as the oldest if Jessa and Ben are planning on being Boob and J’chelle 2.0.

Christine has obviously been teaching Truely about consent and ownership of her own body, as evidenced by her talking head in which she says “It’s my body, so I shouldn’t have to ride a bike if I don’t want to.” But when she tried to tell Kody it should be her choice, he said she was too young to make that kind of choice. That’s some dangerous shit. It’s one thing to explain that parents have to make some choices for you when it comes to stuff like vaccines and taking antibiotics or needing your tonsils out or something, but riding a bike is not in that category. There is no reason she should have to learn when she’s scared and has no interest.

The Banana as Bret Michaels makes sense for the clue package. He has two daughters who would be 20ish and 15ish now.

Sorry, try this one: https://starcasm.net/photos-meet-the-children-of-tlcs-sister-wives/

Aspyn looked a lot like Truely when she was little. You can see it in a few pictures in this old article: https://starcasm.net/photos-meet-the-children-of-tlcs-sister-wives/

I’m going to cut Mariah a little bit of slack, because I remember that feeling of being in college and being exposed to ideas outside of anything I had ever heard in my family or high school. I was probably insufferable early in my college years, quoting my philosophy and women’s studies professors like I was the first person to ever have those ideas. She was raised in a religious, patriarchal household, so to figure out you’re gay and to figure out you don’t agree with most of the principals on which you were raised AND to be surrounded by people supporting your new found belief system can be intoxicating. She’s a little older than I was when I got over my adolescent narcissism, but she’s also come of age A) as a reality show “star” with way more people interested in her than the average college student and B) in this age of social media where people share every minute thought they have and detail of their day. I was in college and grad school in the late 90s/early 00s, and I am so thankful that no internet record of my youthful arrogance exists! I also think she meant “grad school is just reading and thinking and talking” or whatever the quote was as a positive thing. There is definitely a stark difference when you get to grad school between what you get to do there and what you’re used to from undergrad. In undergrad, you’re still doing general education requirements, so even if your passion is social justice or whatever, you’re doing math tests and science labs and writing basic essays on basic texts. There is something magical about getting into a grad school class with just a professor and 8 other students and seeing the difference in the way you’re treated. You do get to dissect the texts and have deep discussions in which the professor wants your thoughts, not just for you to regurgitate theirs. It can be intoxicating. Did she oversimplify the work of grad school? For sure! My masters is in a field similar to what she’s doing, and it was hard work... but it was fun and exciting and invigorating in a way undergrad isn’t.

I can understand Christine getting to parent just her own children once they moved to Las Vegas and realizing how rewarding that was. One thing I have to admit about this family is that their kids generally seem loving and happy. They did not produce a bunch of jerks. They seem to love and value each other and have close relationships. Based on their parenting model back in Utah, I would credit Christine with being the primary parent who cultivated this and is responsible for the good aspects of all the older kids. Then they moved to Las Vegas, and she got to focus all that good parenting on just her biological kids and found that she could do an even better job at that plus still have time to work on herself, figure out who she is as a person, lose weight, etc. I completely see why she would be desperate not to lose that again.

As a mom, I also don’t believe that a parent would take a sick three year old out to the park and to run errands after he had come home from school early. The errands seemed like a way to establish an alibi, ditch the gun, and have a way to come home to a body.

According to his Wikipedia page, Seal was raised by foster parents, which goes along with tonight’s clue package.

This felt like maybe it should have been the second one. It felt out of order.