A surprise reunion

When Lillianna was around 2 years old,I used to go into a women only chat room where I "met" the most wonderful people. We eventually let a few guys in there but they weren't pervs or anything so it was ok. I chatted with these people several times a day while she was napping or playing quietly next to me.

We used to have these sound waves that we could play in the chat so that everyone could hear them. Sometimes someone would type,"This one is for Lillianna," and Lil's favorite wiggle wave would play. It always made her laugh. She would try to type to my friends but it always came out like afdskurpoewihqaifahkdhrakjh;fkadh;i.
Somehow,they always understood and they always answered her.

After two years of chatting,we were over run by "bots" who would come into our room and take it over before we got there. In the end,I figured it was hopeless and I just stopped going in there.

Last Wednesday night,while Lillianna was on the computer,she noticed my messenger that said,"T has signed in." She asked,"Mom,who is 'T'?" I had seen that several times over the past few weeks but I didn't IM her because it had been 6 years since the last time I chatted with her and I wasn't sure if she remembered me. I thought for a moment and then asked Lillianna to scoot out of the chair so that I could IM "T".

I immediately got the response,"Hey CC!" It made my heart stop. No one has called me CC in 6 years. It took me right back to the chat room days. T told me that our chat room was still up and running and had been for all these years. I was stunned. Apparently they moved the room away from the evil bots and continued on. I never knew. I guess they just thought I had moved on.

After a few minutes of chatting with T, it said,"S has entered the chat." All I could type was,"S!!!! OMG....how are you?????" Then the 3 of us went back and forth trying to catch up. "M has entered the chat." M????? M from Alaska????? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't stop asking questions in an attempt to make up for the past 6 years. "J has entered the chat."
J????J????? OMG!!!!! J was a huge Beanie Baby collector and she insisted on sending Lillianna her Beanie twin which is a dog who was "born" on the same day as Lillianna. She frequently sleeps with Bernie the dog but she never remembered that J from my chat room sent it to her. While Lillianna watched the screen zip by with messages, I explained that J was the one who sent her Bernie. Lillianna's filled up as she said,"I think I'm going to cry." (Ya,she's my daughter!)

"R has entered the chat." R....wow. R will always have a special place in my heart. The first day I entered the chat room I was so confused. I didn't know what anything meant: LOL,ROFLMAO,BRB,OMG. The screen was zipping by so fast I got dizzy and my eyes dried out because I was afraid that if I blinked,I'd miss something important. R took me under her wing and explained things to me. She was so sweet and understanding. I would never have been able to figure it out without her.

When we last chatted,all those years ago,she was thinking of having a baby. Last Wednesday,I found out she has a 2 year old daughter. I was so happy for her.
Everyone asked me about Lillianna and they guessed her age as 4 or 5. Then someone typed,"Please don't tell me she is 5 already." I typed,"Uhm,well....she'll be 9 next month." M didn't believe it. "I thought she was a few years younger than my daughter." I asked how old her daughter was. She answered,"Eleven." I had to give her an LOL because Lillianna is 2 years younger but it must not have seemed young enough to M. Poor J was bumming out and claimed to be popping Xanax to relax herself since her daughter Little J was 16 and out on a date...in a car....with a boy!!
OY! I don't want to be worrying about that yet. We all sympathized with her.

I chatted with all my old friends for about an hour and then sadly,I had to go to bed because I had to be up at 5am. We made sure that we added each other onto our messenger so that we can chat again soon. I saved the link to our old chat room because I definitely want to talk to the people who weren't in our little messenger chat room last week. That was really so cool.

Have you ever belonged to a chat room?