Amanda and Jaspen - whilst I've lost weight from a lot of areas, I still have inflated boobs! It's a bit embarrassing sometimes, cos people must think I WANT them this big...I was a 16E during pg and I'm now bw a 14DD and E.
I won't apologise cos it won't be genuine. We respond to the posts that resonate with our individual circumstances, if we have the time, or if we have a possible answer to a question. It's not personal if we don't respond. My posts will often go unacknowledged and that's fine, sometimes I get on, read everyone's posts and just haven't the energy or time to punch out any reply for ages, sometimes a day or two. We're all mates here and many of my posts are just ramblings, musings etc and I dont' expect anyone to go out of their way to respond if they don't feel like it or if they aren't relating at all to what I've said. For example, I usually don't respond to posts about baby weights etc cos I just don't subscribe to charting that sort of thing, as you probably already know! I just can't buy into it and it would be false of me to pretend to be interested in that information, but I DO look at what is posted about your babies' weights and I do read about how you feel about their progress and I DO respond when any of you have any issues with most things that I feel I can make a contribution towards. I can't help myself in that respect! BB is an outlet for many of us, like Bath says, so ramblings might or might not get responded to, questions usually do get answered in some form, milestones usually are remarked upon (but by the time I have responded to the posts that have stuck in my mind for long enough I often forget to do the congratulatory thing, like rolling over etc) by a few of us, etc. There is no 'chosen few'. I reject that outright. It's a forum, so regular users get into a groove for a few days or even a few hours with a topic and then move on, and a momentum is built up with those of us who do find the time to post in regularly (for whatever reason that this is possible!). We WILL wonder where regular users are when they go AWOL, but if there are sporadic posters in here, we notice their contributions but are not surprised by long absences because that's a formed pattern with that person. And that's fine - you get out of it what you put in and I tend to think that the less regular users don't feel the need for the interaction as much as some of the rest of us do...that's great! Anyway, I can't see the need to apologise for the perception that someone else might have about our response habits, because someone else's perception is out of my control and realm of responsibility. I guess I've just become weary of having to deal with my mum's skewed perceptions all my life and recently decided that no matter what I do or say, her perceptions are her own and she needs to take responsibility for how she reacts to things, and that this shall henceforth apply to everyone else! By that I don't mean that I will become careless with how I say things, not at all, it's just that I don't think I'm an offensive person and that if someone takes issue with what I do or say then they need to figure out what it was that got to them and why...it's usually something that reflects back on that person. I know this to be the case when I dissect a conversation I haven't been happy with. If I think about it and realise that I put a colour on it that wasn't there, then I have to deal with my own perceptions. If I still feel someone was out of line then I'll address it in an appropriate manner - that is, approach that person on a mutual level of understanding. This might sound like gobbledigook by now, but trust me, I go through this in the fire brigade, horse riding club and governing association, uni etc. whenever there is a perceived conflict of ideas or 'personalities'.
That's me done. No apologies. If someone feels that they are not getting value out of the forum then all we can do is say that we are here when you feel like coming back and we'd love to read from you again!
ANYWAY, I just spoke to my sister and she informed me, when my mum had safely left the room, that the bottle of gin DP and I left with her last year (nearly 12 months ago), that had gone virtually untouched this whole time, is now nearly finished thanks to a binge my mum went on...she's only been there 3 days! She regrets it now, thankfully, and was very poorly for it the next day. Well, I hope she got it out of her system (the urge to binge) cos my sister doesn't need to be looking after an alco and her unborn child! Not only that, she'll have two grandchildren by the end of the year and she needs to either confront her demons or sit on them to stop inflicting them on everyone else (well, trying, anyway). Grrr!
I'm so looking forward to Christmas, though - babies on the beach!
Pony's rug is changed, it's bloody windy out there and I'm expecting the pager to go off all night...
Oscar is still a bit sickly but heaps better than the previous days. Asleep again in the HAB
Gotta look up this swimming pool that does baby classes...been meaning to do that for two weeks!
ok, off again...
PS Cee Cee, you started something with the Moo Goo!