I think you are right Susan - about the give and take part. sometimes what spills on to the screen is the best or the worst. I am not a fast typeist - so I tend to think about the consise way to say things. This means the details that would have everyone understanding the whole story get lost. Because of some misunderstandings (It happens when I speak sometimes because I can get very terse when I am tired) , i tend to re rad emotional emails and make sure I at least am giving the details ( even if I still sound crazy )

and missing close friends seems right to me.

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I have never been able to get it to work LJ. I'm not sure why.

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Typo, I'm so sorry about the flare-up, and I hope it gets sorted out soon.

Looking back at the posts from this afternoon, they do look more like helpfulness and less like being piled upon than they felt when I first read them, in an already agitated state. At the time it felt like one "stop it or you'll make your daughter insane" after another, which when one is already crying one's eyes out, tends to be read as "you're being a terrible mother." But even then I knew that wasn't how it was meant.

And my missing my friends from Philly isn't meant in the least as a slam against this board--it's more homesickness for being able to sit down across the table at a coffeehouse with someone who's known you for forever, can practically read your mind, and knows how to head your panicky tendencies off at the pass before they turn into a big deal. And a big part of that is missing the face-to-faceness of it.

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Well, yeah, and they've known you for...a lot of years, right? Sometimes there is no substitute for that. A dear friend's "Shut the hell up!" is sometimes a great gift, but there are a lot of tone things that go into it.(Seriously, everyone I love the most has told me that once. Maybe my affectionate gestures aren't like other people's, therefore. If I suspect a person of humoring me, they are not likely to stay my friend...was I too blunt?)

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was I too blunt?

Maybe a little, and maybe I misunderstood what you were saying. Too, DH and such real-life confidantes as I have run to the blunt, tough love types, so I kinda crave those old friends' finesse for surrounding the "you're stronger than this, you know it, so buck up" message with lots of reassuring hairpats.

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Okay, I caught up.

Hopefully without dreams. I've been having horrid nightmares lately. Last night I dreamed about my grandmother falling off the side of a cliff, among other things. Yeah, I know, metaphor much?

It was contagious? Oh bugger... Sorry about that, Kristin.

If it helps, figuring out that 'metaphor much' part seemed to make mine go away. Or talking about. Either way, they seem to have stopped.

I'm not angry, but I'm sure as fuck vindictive.

I dearly love Erin. Possibly to tag?

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F2F conversations have a whole different vibe than online. on line it is hard to tell if what some one needs is reassurance or a reminder that there is a pattern going on - also it is easier for me to judge the moods of a listener- even if I am the paniced one.

I've got three things that make me wierd and panicky - DH not being home before midnight.- money esp. unknown amounts due. - and the TV/TIVO not working propperly; I might not watch it, but I need to know it is there.

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Curse you Hec. Now I want this haircut: [link]

It's a good cut, huh?

I'm sorry, Susan. I said what I thought, and Lyra and Perkins have articulated where I was coming from. I absolutely know that you love your daughter. But it's hard watching you create so much of your own stress. You do it again and again, and you don't seem to have accepted that since you've never done this before your expectations are not based on experience. And that a child's development will vary considerably from benchmarks. And the benchmarks are making you crazy.

I was undoubtedly blunt and critical, which was probably not what you needed today. I'm sorry about that. But my reaction was very similar to that of most people who posted - and we were all reacting to the same thing.

We were not surprised by the nurse's opinion.

I wish you could see Betsy with her daughter, to see how simpatico you get with your child when they get older. Or me with Emmett, even, now that he's bigger. Your daughter will be bright and bookish and have some of your wonky taste in things. And some things with Dylan. And some things her own.

All those things that you are so invested in, that you have such deep hopes for with Annabel will be there. That's not handwaving. That's because I know how much you love her, and how involved with her you are.

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It's OK, Hec.

One thing I need to write down and tape up on my desk with my 5-year writing plan and the CS Lewis quote and Bruce Cockburn lyrics that help me focus on the wip, is "The guidelines aren't for you." Because that's pretty much a universal truth of my life that applies to far more than just toddler development charts. None of this stuff is written for the benefit of hyper-informed overthinking semi-neurotic perfectionists, because we're a minority, and we're already doing at least enough to stimulate our children's minds/nourish said children in utero/follow the moral tenets of our particular religion or philosophy of life/etc. But since we're perfectionists, we take the rules that are meant to make less intense people do enough and break ourselves trying to live them out 100%. Or we look at guidelines meant to make people pay enough attention to catch a kid's problem before it's too late and freak out over one little thing when the overall pattern looks fine.

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Weirdest thing just happened. I've been sitting here checking out various things online and listening to the neighbors chat and laugh outside, when I heard a train whistle two or three times. The odd thing about this is that there is no train anywhere remotely close enough to hear. There are mountains between me and trains. Huh.

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