Yeah.

I just know.

But I pray for that.

I, I, 'cause it, I feel like sometimes it's not as strong as I, it should be, as I want it to be.

But I do, I pray and I ask God to help me see what is for me and what is against me, because I believe that we live in a world and where we, there's a battle going on every day-

Amen.

Um, it's just a, it's just a feeling that I, I just, I can't...

Like I said, I always thought when I was younger, but I felt like I've always kinda had it.

Why do you say that?

Because-With his job, he would have to disclose to the, the, um, his contract that this is what he has, and that could very much impact who would and wouldn't employ him and where he could and couldn't go.

Um, we don't want them to have that precursor of who this person might be, 'cause that's absolutely not my husband.

But I think my husband would just never be able to live with himself knowing that he plead guilty to something he didn't do, and especially towards his child.

Like, if it was something random like hitting some random in town one night that he didn't do, like, that would be different.

But assaulting his own child, who he, like, would do anything for, is just not something that's in him that he could do.

And he just doesn't, he's not someone who lies, and I think it would eat him up.

It is the same at lunchtime and at the end of the day when he is held there until the jury leaves.

However, you don't have a full team.

No. Yeah.

I mean, we, we will, um, just, you know, basically outsource probably the tracks and stuff, um, in, in like state to other states.

We do have people here, like volunteers, that go and do it, or we do, you know, we do pay people actually to do tracks here for us as well.

Um, but yeah, we just, it's just about finding those people and it's, it's also about finding the event sites.

'Cause I think, um, it's a bit difficult in New South Wales to find good event sites that are like close to tracks and stuff that support our size now.

And I know it's getting more and it's getting difficult really 'cause we're so big now.

Yeah, yep.

How did you go about teaching them? Particularly time management and executive function, how do you teach those?

Post-its.

So many Post-its, and I know that some of my friends have taken my Post-it system, and it has been successful for their children.

But basically visualizing a lot of things.

Time obviously is a really hard concept for children, and so making time more visible from a younger age.

We had a clock.

We still actually have it, but we had a clock from when they were young enough to start even talking about time, not necessarily telling time, and it's color-coded, so every hour it's filled in with like a different pie color so that we could really talk about, "Okay, well, when the three hits the blue line," they could see on this clock how long that would take and, you know, kind of start to visualize time.

Tell us how it works and what makes you love it so much, and if there are any challenges with it.

[laughs]

So, um, I think I wanted to start off with a question about your, um, okay, deeper end question, and I, only 'cause I can't think of the other ones that are on my list right now.

Deep end question, you both run building businesses.

Building is a high-stress, high-risk industry to be in.

You guys both run very successful businesses.

Um, have you ever been close to the edge financially, like throwing in the towel?

Yeah.

And this was, I was taught this very early on.

Since these fractures, uh, the ones which were identified on the various X-rays and admissions into hospital, uh, have there been any more injuries or fractures, uh, in relation to [beep]?

He's had injuries, yes, but, um, to my knowledge, not any further fractures.

Um, initially his collarbone wasn't seen in his original X-rays, um, but it was seen in his second one.

So we're unsure if that collarbone break was actually there in the beginning or if it was caused during his hospital admission.

Jess continues and answers questions from Robin Bates about more recent injuries her second son has sustained.

Um, he was at a, a Friday music group with me, my neighbor, and my oldest child, and he was pushed off a chair by another child and hit his head, which we took him to the GP and s- got him seen that afternoon.

Um, and recently, um, I am led to believe that my toddler pushed him into the table because I was downstairs getting the jackets ready for kindergarten, and, um, I came back upstairs and he'd split his eyebrow open, and which I took him to the doctor's and he had that repaired, well, glued back together.

And, and other than that, um-I can't recall any other injuries that he may have sustained.

"I'd love to look in the mirror and be happy with my body."

body."I would love to look in the...

So I think this is, this is interesting because Maya and I just had this conversation in a recent session.

We were talking about how diet culture tricks you into believing that if you just hit a goal weight or hit this, you know, whatever it is that you've decided is your thing, goal, uh, everything will be amazing.

And, like, all of your problems will disappear, like, everything.

You will be ecstatic all the time.

[laughs] And I was like, "Maya, that's just not real life." Like, I, some days I look in the mirror and I'm like just neutral.

Like, what has intuitive eating given you? How has it changed your life outside of just food and body image?

Y pues no, entonces...

Yo, yo siento que ese anime en especial tuvo ese problema, porque no sépan, ese anime lo tuvieron que retirar de Toon Manga Online cuando estaba todavía vivo.

No es-- había forma de leerlo y creo que no se pelearon por su licencia, tampoco les interesaba mucho la licencia de este lado del mundo.

No lo-- está desconocido.

No me acuerdo exactamente cuál fue el punto, pero el anime básicamente era muy difícil de leer.

Digo, el manga era muy difícil de leer.

Yo recuerdo haber batallado bastante para leerlo en su momento.

Eso lo dijo Gabe Newell de, de Valve.

Jess goes on to describe what happened during the birth of the baby.

I got induced at 38 plus four, and I delivered him 38 plus six.

38 plus four, which was a Friday, I was induced by oral medication, medicine, misoprostol, uh, which is supposed to induce labor.

This didn't get me fully in labor.

On day three, Sunday, they broke my waters at 11:00 AM.

I was in active labor at 1:15 PM and delivered [beep] at 1:58 PM on the 18th of June 2023.

He came out in two pushes.

Jess then describes the moment she noticed something different.

[laughs]

Hi.

This is Jess from Wisconsin.

I wanna give a shout-out to Valdetta and Heather, um, Michelle and Brandy, um, and Tracy.

Um, I'm so proud of you.

And, um, and my wolf pack.

I love you guys.

[clapping]

There's really no point coming to visit at this stage."

It's not for you to decide that.

I have had all these years of not knowing him, and I'm not even [laughs] allowed to say goodbye.

Sorry.

I felt, um, very pushed out, very unwanted again, um, very rejected, and I wanted to just be able to say thank- thanks to him because he was lovely.

I kept explaining my reasons why I wanted to go and say goodbye, um, but it, they just didn't seem to get it

... essentially.

For years, years and years, that, that one little lane was all I had.

Your lawyer

Yeah.

When your lawyer tells you that they're never gonna drop it, blah, blah, blah, and then all of a sudden she says, "Actually, I've asked them to withdraw the charges," and not only once, but twice, then you know that you're, got a really strong case.

'Cause she would never do that if she didn't think she could.

And so when that happens, you put a lot of faith in the fact that the cops will see sense and actually decide to withdraw the charges.

But when I started seeing all the doctors firing back, that actually they were just doubling down, I kinda started to lose hope that that was ever gonna happen.

I was like, "These guys are never gonna, never gonna drop this.

How's your husband?

Or was her decision driven by curiosity, a way of finding out more about Lewis and the big family he went on to have with Debbie?

Just another, another thing.

I didn't think the story could get any more unbelievable.

She said she'd told her things that, you know, if she'd have known, she would never have said.

She just couldn't get her head around it at all, like.

But when Chloe dies, Jess is conscious that she isn't, in fact, a member of their family.

I didn't wanna overstep the mark and be too, too much.

And yeah, I didn't know what to do or say, really.

Yeah.

And he's like, "Yeah, go ahead." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh.

Well, what do I do?" You know, I act new to it, like, like if I've never had sex, basically.

And so then he, he, you know, usually he just, you know...

Well, how we do it is he, my husband will come up to me and just kiss me and, you know, kinda get me to calm down a little bit.

So that's what we did the first time and, and so-

Yeah.

And so there wasn't a whole lot to talk about, but we were talking kind of about our emotions, and I think he just still kinda needed to process the whole thing, and me too.

Tell me what happens.

So it was really difficult.

The dynamics was really hard to juggle.

I knew that there was tensions and things and, and difficulties with their mum.

It wasn't anything she ever expected.

I s- I certainly wasn't anything she ever expected to sort of jump onto the scene.

And I th- I can understand, like, her thoughts and feelings towards me would've been really difficult.

So when Jess and Chloe discover each other and start chatting in 2022, it's one of the first things Jess learns about her.

We are thrilled to announce the newest bookish podcast under the Fantasy Fangirls Media Network.

What you're about to hear is the first little bit of this brand-new podcast, Fantasy Fan Reads, which is hosted by the delightful Jess of Lost Books of Jess.

Each episode is all about celebrating the joys of reading through cozy coffee conversations, author interviews, and so much more.

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Hey there, how are you? Welcome to the Fantasy Fan Reads podcast, where we gather as friends to chat about our shared love of all things reading.

I'm Jess, an avid lifelong reader and lover of cozy conversations.

So go ahead and grab yourself a cup of something wonderful, and come on in.

Today is a special Cup of Conversation solo episode, where I'm going to dive into a variety of reading topics submitted by all of you.

14 months older.

Are you being serious? [sighs] Oh, God.

I can't believe that.

14 months older.

Ugh.

Well, like, no, no words can express when you think that someone has dumped you on the side of a road, that they'd then go and do it again.

It never...

They travel to visit Jess, and they invite Jess for a return visit at theirs.

But Jess isn't convinced.

Yeah, I was kind of a bit taken back 'cause it was just, um...

I was trying to put myself in her shoes and think, well, if someone had said that about me, I would just be like, "Oh, no, I'm not sure.

I'm, I'm unsure about why they would think that," but I certainly wouldn't have been defensive.

I think she was perhaps hoping I would take that as gospel and leave it there because she knew nothing else.

There was nothing else to say.

Nothing else we need to talk about.

Three years pass, and it's only when Jess is leaving hospital, having just given birth to her first baby in 2013, that a sense of being abandoned comes roaring back.

Jess tells me her parents reassure her that nothing's changed, that she's still the same person.

And they were constantly trying to tell me, you know, "You're, you're a good person.

You're..." You know, and as much as anyone tells you that, you don't feel like you are.

Like, you feel like your roots, your roots are [sniffs] bad.

You're, like, rotten.

Um, you've come from someone that can discard a baby and have no [sniffs] thoughts or feelings about that.

You'd turn back the clock?

Yeah.

You are a foundling.

I was found on the side of a road in a village in Suffolk.

I was wearing a vest and a nappy.

That's the word that she kept using.

No words can express when you think that someone has dumped you on the side of a road, that they'd then go and do it again.

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But, um, I'm g- I, I'll tell you what I told her, but first I'm curious, what would your advice be to her?

Oh, you know what? I've been not obviously in that exact scenario, but I think both of us have been in scenarios where we've definitely lost ourself.

And I think that it's just so important for, one, and, like, what we've done is, like, we've had to communicate what we need from each other.

It's an open one.

So, um, for me, I feel that he-Is, um, ashamed of me, embarrassed of me.

I feel like, um, I'm, I'm good enough for him, but not for his public image, and that really hurts, and that makes me feel really insecure.

He doesn't post anything of us on his social media.

He hasn't introduced me to his family.

You know, I don't know many of his friends.

I feel, at times, like I'm a sidepiece.

So in David and Jess's case, looking at the fact that Jess feels that David is ashamed of her is actually the beginning of her working through what she needs to, to be able to trust him in those more higher alarm bell situations with other women.

Yeah.

Well yeah, and the amount that I drink.

I was thinking today, like, caffeine has a five-hour half-life.

If I have eight espressos in the morning at 10 o'clock, that's still like I was drinking an espresso right before I went to bed.

But and then I drink a Celsius at, like, 2:00-

The desire.

... yeah, the desire.

Like, the more sex you have, the more you want it.

What do you do when, you know, you're feeling down or burnt out or disconnected from reading in the community? And what are some of your favorite practices to do that for yourself as well as to lift others up when you are feeling like that?

So when I'm feeling down or burnt out or disconnected, it's usually because I need to, like, opt out of something.

I need to take something off my plate because I've, like, flown too close to the sun.

And I think in this, again, in this world where so many people are trying to make a name for themselves on social media and carve a space for themselves, you feel like you have to be part of everything.

You have to read ARCs and be on street teams and go to signings and go to conventions, and it just starts to feel like so much, right? Because we're all still adulting on the side.

And usually when I'm feeling that disconnect, it's because I tried to do too much and tried to be too much to too many people, and I did it to myself.

And I need to look in the mirror and go, "Mm, that's not why we're doing this.

Hmm.

Brodie was younger than the other girls, but she had also left school.

The day before we were going to leave, we were walking through the mall.

We, we come from a small town, so we're just walking through town, and this younger girl that we knew by association, you know, friends of friends, she was hanging out, and we approached her and asked her what she was doing, and we were pretty excited.

We were like, "You know, it's summertime.

It's February.

We don't have to go to school.

You know, we're gonna go fruit picking and make some money, buy a car, go on a road trip." So Brodie was younger than us, so I would've been 18, and I reckon Brodie would've been 15.

From the moment the three girls hopped on the train that morning, an uneasy feeling began to bury itself in the pit of her stomach.It would stay there and grow as time went on.