3/24/2005 06:57:00 PM|||Amy|||This morning I asked John if my blog is as boring to read, as it is, sometimes, for me to write. He said that not only was it boring, but it is just a catalog of my complaints. As the tagline says, he explained, it is meant to be a letter to the kids. But, what have I done? I have made it into my tiny little once or twice weekly bitch session.

And so it is. I had hoped that via the blog I would realize that the creativity I found as if it were springing from an inexhaustible mine in my youth hasn't turned out to be inexhaustible after all. But, what I've found instead, is that the best I can submit is a litany of the little, nagging criticisms that come to mind whenever I happen to be sitting in front of a computer doing nothing else.

I am hopeful. Maybe I haven't become so jaded yet.

Today, in a rare moment when I finally remembered to do something that I've been meaning to do but never seem to remember during business hours, I called a daycare which is located about five minutes from home. Virtually everyone I know has used this daycare but I didn't even know where it was until last weekend when I finally asked for directions more specific than, oh - it's just down the street from the church. I can be pedantic that way.

I think this place might finally be the place I've been hoping to find. They take kids from 18 months through Kindergarten, which they include a private Kindergarted in their curriculum. This will be good for Monkey, since her birthday is such that she will be the oldest kid in her class once she gets into public school. Winston will be the youngest. Their prices are less than what I've found elsewhere, and they have an indoor pool so the kids will get the opportunity to learn to swim. They are really flexible on pick-up times, and enormously flexible with the payment schedule. If the daycare fairy still has a wand, then my grandest wish is that this place is all that it seems.

And maybe, just maybe, if the girls go into daycare and Bear has something to do this summer that doesn't include endless hours of tv, I will be relieved of a tiny amount of worry that has been blinding me from the trapdoor leading into the treasure trove of imagination which I hope still exists somewhere in all that dust and darkness.

Last night Monkey stuck her tiny little hand into the filter slot of our new dryer. I was in the process of thinking up a design for a vacuum cleaner which can reach into narrow spaces and suck up large quantities of pocket lint when Monkey offered to see if she could dig out the mass of dog hair and clothing fiber for me. Her luck was really no better than mine, and off she went again to hide all the Barbie clothes.

We took the kids to a candlelit vigil for Terri Schiavo yesterday evening. Monkey and Bear each had a flashlight and Winston provided the lilting interludes with a sort of stuttered wail whenever she wanted to be lifted up or set back down again. The turnout was very small, and still it was attended by 2 policeman on bicycles. The cops made the whole thing seem kind of surreal and unruly somehow - but really, there were only about 20 people there and every single one of them looked like they had just staggered out of a long day at the office. Hardly the types to set off riots.|||111171343109919606|||3/25/2005 08:08:02 AM|||Judy The Great|||Why should this blog be letters to your children and not about you? I come here to read about whats going on in your life. Quite frankly I'm about as interested in what you have to say to your children as you are in what I have to say to my children. It's not an insult, it's the truth.

So what if your blog is a littany of complaints and whines. It's an online journal and that's what it's for. If you were writing this on paper instead of on a computer would you be saying all that much different?

Don't write for the masses, write for yourself. I appreciate that you share your personal stuggles and triumps in this way and I like reading about you and what's going on.3/25/2005 08:11:41 AM|||Judy The Great|||Sorry for all the misspellings, hyou know that I'm a horrible speller and now my keyboard that has been damaged due to coffee spillage is only magnifying my bad spelling with typos. My appologies.3/25/2005 08:31:47 AM|||Amy|||Thank you, Judy, and you can bring your keyboard and typos over here any time!

The thing about keeping an audience in mind is a constant struggle. I don't want to write for anyone but myself - but I am still ever mindful of how what I write will be interpreted and possibly, even used against me. The only good solution is to take Kangatopia down and start again - but I don't want to give up the name and I don't want to discredit everything that I've put in here already.

I am really tired and frustrated by all the censorship. This has been my vent through the last few years of upheaval, and I've been asked time and again to stop writing about all the conflict.

I have to give myself the freedom to write without remorse, but I also have to be conscious of and prepared for the consequences.

I'll get there one of these days, and I think the day is soon. Now, that the divorce is final and daycare is within sight and my life is starting to gain a little bit of a foothold within stability - maybe that freedom really is just around the corner.

Thank you, Judy, for not letting me get all tangled up.