UPDATE: Behind the facade of the Saturday morning buzz, Kyneton is grieving.
Kids are sipping hot chocolates and the small town’s bakery is selling hot fresh pies. An elderly couple talk quietly in the shade on a park bench.
But make the slightest reference to Noah, the toddler who was found dead in a car on Thursday afternoon, and expressions distort in anguish.
The 22-month-old boy’s mother was there when he was found outside a childcare centre, but she has been too distraught to talk to police, who are still piecing together what happened.
“It’s a small town, we all feel it,” says John Reardon, who is selling sausages for charity outside a furniture shop.
“It’s a tragic accident. It’s easy to blame but, as a parent, you’re thinking about so many things at once. We know how these things happen.”
Jodi Millen, a single mother of two, said she had been guilty of leaving her children in the car when they were under three.
One of her children, now a young adult, watches her mother intently.
“There were times when I needed to run in to the shop to pick up things with little time, and left them there.
“As a parent you’re supposed to be the be-all and end-all and sometimes you get it wrong.
“There was another time when I left my daughter in a pram at a department store and thought, ‘my god, there are thousands of people here, anything could have happened’. You beat yourself up for it but it happens to all of us. Anyone who claims to be perfect parent is not living in reality.”
Ms Millen is angry about posts circulating on Facebook and Instagram that blame the mother for her child’s death.
The police have not yet established the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death.
“This is not a time for others to sit in judgment. Only a parent has the right to judge their own parenting,” Ms Millen said.
“You know that when you hear stories like that, that they will change the way you do things. You self-analyse. You learn from it.
“This is a wound this woman will carry for the rest of her life.”
Lara Steele is carrying her newborn in her left arm, her partner Tom Ranking pushing the pram by her side.
Lara says there have been times her baby has fallen asleep in the back of her car and for moment, she has forgotten he was there.
“When these things happen and you remember how careful you need to be.”
Noah’s mother is a visual artist who recently published her first illustrated children’s book and made her love for Noah clear on social media.
Just two months ago, she posted a photo showing Noah sitting in a fruit box staring up at her.
“Sometimes it is painful to love someone this much,” she wrote.
A family member, who did not want to be named, said the family was inconsolable.
“He was just a gorgeous little boy. But I don’t want to say ‘was’ or I think I’ll start crying,” they said.
“It’s dreadful. No one could talk to her [Noah’s mother] and her mum and dad are also distraught. They were always up in Kyneton babysitting.”
The family member said Noah’s parents had moved to Kyneton from Melbourne about two or three years ago to raise their family, including their five-year-old daughter.
With a plot of land there, and an interest in permaculture, the family grew their own vegetables and raised chickens and pigs.
“It was better for the kids: the air is fresher, it’s a better environment to raise children,” the family member said.
“No one imagined this.”
The boy’s father, Andrew Krespanis, posted tributes to his son on social media on Friday, saying that the family had lost their “beautiful son”.
“I love him more everyday, forever,” he wrote.
“I’ll always know I cherished every day, every laugh, every adventure, every cuddle.”
“Hug your children and never let them go.”
This story first appeared in The Age
