. I'm doing my best. I love my daughter, and I try to show her that and give her what she needs to thrive to the best of my abilities.

In that case, you are doing your best. Can you let that go?

Sometimes rotten stuff happens even when you are doing your best. If Annabel is diagnosed tomorrow with an autism spectrum disorder (and I doubt she will be, with all my hundreds-of-miles-away insights), it will not be your fault. Autism happens. If Annabel is diagnosed tomorrow with a 200 IQ and being too smart to bother with language acquisition, it will not be your fault.

Kids are a toss of the dice. Every kid is some combination of genes, environment, and pure willfulness. You cannot make a kid into a ballerina or an athlete or a genius by sheer force of parenting. If you're very lucky, you can hang around while the kid discovers his or her own genius. But ultimately you are not driving the train.

Susan, I don't think you are incompetent. And I have no doubt of your love for Annabel. And I have no doubt that you are doing your best.

Reposted so that you know that I truly think this, Susan.

Just back from Google. I understand tongue-tie now.

Although, most of the sites seem to indicate that it doesn't affect speech except in the most severe cases, and from what Susan's said, Annabel has a mild case. I also thought that Annabel was saying some words, just not talking a lot?

BUT, I'm neither a doctor, nor there.

Okay. I have made my point, and am now dropping it.

Relatedly: I'm fairly sure I was a late talker. I could ask my mom. I know I ran into some huge speech development issues later, because I developed a serious lisp that kept me from being willing to talk in front of anybody that wasn't my mom. Ever. Not so good for the social development. Luckily, free speech pathology at school nipped that in the bud in my preschool and kindergarten years, and by the age of six I could say "she sells seashells by the seashore" as well as the next kid.

I always prefered Betty Botter, though, as tongue twisters go.

What are other mothers worried about?

I'm vaguely concerned that Lillian has no real interest in pulling her legs under her ass and making for crawling, though I realize she's got huge diapers and short little thighs which make this not as easy for her as for some, but then I get paranoid, because her cousin was crawling at this age. She reaches across the midline just fine, and on a regular basis, and I hear tell that's the thing they worry about non-crawlers not grasping or something.

But still! Mobility, kid! You know you want it!

(Hmm. Why am I encouraging this behavior, again?)

I really don't think Aimee is in anyway out of line or being unkind. Seriously.

Susan, there are challenges I had growing up that I wish my parents had paid attention to, and done something, anything, about. So I am very much behind every effort you take to ensure that stuff gets dealt with. Taking the effort to get Annabelle the right care as soon as possible is a good thing. But remember that, developmentally, a couple months seems longer to your mother's heart than it is to her growing mind. If the best care you can get for your daughter takes a while to come through, it will still be helpful. She's going to bloom wonderfully.

My concern is for you. If the worry you are showing here is just a moment of freaking out and needing to express yourself in a safe place (goodness knows I need time and space to freak about stuff that is less important), that's well and good. But if you are feeling like this a lot of the time, I hope you can find ways to de-stress.

I'm vaguely concerned that Lillian has no real interest in pulling her legs under her ass and making for crawling

When my one sister started to crawl she'd drag one leg. Once the doctor said the muscles, etc. were fine it was funny as hell. We have old super eights with my aunt singing a song about a peg-leg pirate baby.

I worry that Em is too skinny even though I have watched her put away 2 whole hot dogs, an entire serving of diced peaches, a bunch of carrots, and 2 veggie wagon wheels.

In about 5 minutes.

I was an early talker, and an early walker, but I never did manage coordination.

That my whole family STILL thinks this is funny doesn't help. Thursday, after I'd fumbled my knife, my sister was remembering the time I stumbled into every laundry basket in the living room and my dad followed behind, being Mr Mimic. They don't get why this makes me cranky, because to them, comedy gold.