Sheila - this cross posted with my next post.
Maybe that's part of the problem - *I* see a lot of those things, but they are apparently not translating well or something.
Lois with Christopher, for instance, is based largely on my first night home with my oldest. I was in tears for hours because I was exhausted and I had no idea what to do to make it better. It was pure exhaustion combined with 'I don't know how to make it better for her' combined with 'oh crap what have I gotten myself into'. To me, Clark's offer to help there was genuine. He didn't know what he could do to make it better, but he was willing to try, even if Lois didn't take it that way.
And I think some of what you want is coming - and has been there 'in between' in the past, in my head, but maybe it needed to not be 'in between' or something.
All that said, given your math... With what is already written, added to the number of chapters planned out after that [taking Ch. 1-? and pasting them back into the file to account for those not yet written], this is on track to be, if not the longest ever, then close - and probably the longest [if my txt KB doohickey is right]. I've been hesitant to say that for fear of scaring folcs off, but it is.
I was going to say more, but that involves spoilerish stuff that I really don't want to get into here and now, but will be posted [without double checking the chapter numbers] within the next week tops [probably the next 3-4 days but don't remember the ch. # off the top of my head].
Carol
