I believe that everyone has a deep place of knowing. We use it in times of stress or problem solving. Some just don't know they use it, others refuse to believe it is there. I have known about my knowing place for a very long time. Call it intuition or what you may but it has gotten me through some scrapes in my life.

When I was a teenager I had a friend that I loved to spend the night with. Donna had a little brother of whom she was very proud. She was also very quiet about him, almost reflective and pensive.

I remember my very first visit to her house. Meeting her brother I understood her proudness and reticence to speak of him. He had Downs Syndrome. Back then (1976) not alot of information was available to the public about downs syndrome. These kids were not mainstreamed into the public school system so there was very little interaction with anyone with a disability of any kind. I remember being very afraid of him. I remember being afraid I would do the wrong thing around him, and being afraid Donna and her family would sense my fear.

Nervous at first, we played a board game while Eric watched. His mother hovered, watching to make sure Eric did not menace his sister and myself as younger siblings often do. I watched him alot, trying not to be too obvious but through my fear I was also curious. I silently prayed to God right then that I wished I would never have a child like Eric. I sent my fervent prayer to Gods ears and knew as soon as I had uttered the prayer that I was destined to have a child with Downs Syndrome. I heard it in my Knowing Place.

The fear of him I later discovered wasn't about his retardation or difference. It was about the deep sadness I saw around his mothers eyes and her exasperation that seeped through her pores . I understood the sadness then for I was empathetic. But I did not understand her exasperation. I should say I misunderstood her lack of patience with Eric.

I didn't linger on the knowing of my child with Down's long. I was still a young girl with activities and hopes to keep me busy.

In 1994 My daughter colleen was born. Fat and quiet she was a ray of sunshine. When she was five months old I got pregnant again. This is the way that God and your knowing place works. All of my other children were well spaced. My planning, but God does not always listen to our plans, he has his own.

I believe that we are on earth to fulfill a plan and if we listen to that place of knowledge deep within us we would realize that there is always the guiding force of spirituality.

I did not know I was pregnant with my son until the fifth month. By then any genetic testing for problems would have been skewed. My midwife explained that I had no reason to fear anything other than a normal pregnancy but also explained that I needed to be vigilant with vitamins and food intake.

From the time I found out I was pregnant, I was locked in my place of knowing. Women do have concerns and fears that arise during pregnancy, so I brushed these concerns off to that. I did not confide in my husband when I arrived at knowledge from my reflections, he just didn't get it.

I knew this was a boy. I just was certain, yet we could not decide upon a boys name. We had girl names picked out but were undecided on a boy. The pregnancy was really quite normal and uneventful. My son was quiet alot, and had the hiccups frequently. I did not gain as much weight with him so I wasn't as uncomfortable.

In the final week of pregnancy women usually see their doctor more frequently. As my midwife was convinced that I would deliver on time or early so she watched me closely. After finding out that my son was ready to go, head down and resting comfortably I was comforted. Still my knowing place nagged at me.

A couple of days later I returned to the midwife, still pregnant. She said "Goodness, the baby has turned and left the birth canal completely." I was no longer ready for delivery. She said the usual comforting words about inducing labor if I went past my due date and sent me home.

On the way home my knowing place was screaming at me. He has downs syndrome, and his name will be Gabriel Isaiah. An angel perhaps? A voice from God? Probably. I needed preperation for what was about to happen . I was oddly comforted in my knowledge, and oddly comforted that all those years ago God had not listened to my fervent prayer.

Lately, it has occurred to me that I no longer know how to carry on a coversation.

We recently moved into a small apartment complex, after having rented a house for several years. The move was an attempt to save money, and save the stress of never having money. Family issues have been forcing my hubbie and I to re-examine our priorities.

When you live in your own house you become secluded in many ways from other people. Yes you know your neighbors, but do not tend to encounter them in a shared driveway or laundrey room. Thus I have become lazy. As I write this however I realize that when you get older you tend to have a minimal circle of friends. Things that seemed important in younger years are now unimportant and snottily sometimes I think I blow off people.

It also occurred to me that often in a stressful life such that mine has been for a few years, you don't have alot of mental energy for idle chit chat. I think that is why people like blogs. That is not to say that blogs are idle chit chat. Writing a blog offers the writer to type all of his own idle chit chat, and helps the reader to realize that he/she is not alone in their human experience.

On a lighter note, when we moved to this apartment we adopted an 8 week old kitten. He is all black including his whiskers. Well Onyx has adopted my daughters stuffed lamb. He carries it everywhere, biting the crap out of it and drooling on it. This stuffed lamb which we call ony's baby is as large as the kitten. Tonight Onyx learned to play fetch with that darned stuffed animal.. My daughter was proud to teach him and he wore himself out playing. It was good to hear her giggle. There is nothing like the sound of your kid's laughter!

stupid post just appeared that i wrote last night. I am leaving it, you can ignore or read it is basically a ditto of this am's post.

Last evening I wrote a post that disappeared. Not sure what happened. Hopefully this will stay.

Pressure! Self imposed, or societally imposed, honestly is no more or less than a control issue. WE all experience pressure at one time or another, external pressures like bills, relationship woes, and career issues. Internal pressure however seems more a balance of personality, only slightly shaped by external forces. So now that I have waxed a bit philisophical I will get to the point.

Yesterday was progress report day. ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH.............there I have released some of my externally imposed pressure.

First I must comment on the general state of our public school system. I certainly get that we as a nation have to reshape the education system. But in my opinion we have gone about it in the most hideous of strong arm tatics. I want a good education for my kids, I want great teachers. What I don't want is a bunch of stressed out adults who are being pressured by government and school boards to be teaching my kids. It seems we have placed alot of pressure on the teachers to reshape this educational system and many of them are passing that urgency and pressure off onto their students. Teaching has to be the second hardest job, next to parenting and now it has become intensely difficult.

I have observed that in the past couple of years teachers are being groomed to teach kids to pass a state test. A state test in every subject that is generic in nature. Further, the teachers are pressured to keep the numbers above a certain generic average. If too many students fail, it is ultimately the teachers fault. Poor teachers! They are not responsible for all the social issues that enter into the educating of a child.

What does this have to do with progress reports and my own kids? Everything.
Academic struggles are not unknown to my kids. My oldest lapsed in her senior year and barely graduated. She , however was the kind of child to learn from her mistakes, and has since picked herself up and is attending college.

My 15 year old feels no pressure to academically succeed. Despite parental wheedling, grounding, begging and pleading she failed 3 classes last year and repeated two during summer school. This kid obviously feels no pressure to learn from her mistakes as she has two F's on her progress report. We, her parents, have gone military, although until this kid gets it together for herself I suspect we will continue to have academic issues.

Then there is my 12 year old. Every parent wants one of these kids! Studious and ambitious..................but wowser this kid is high maintainance. She places so much pressure on herself to succeed academically that she has been vomiting since school started. Math is the source. I suspect her teacher is an overbearing personality and dealling with pressure herself. My daughter is an A student, but has worked for her grades, they do not come easy to her. Because she passed a generic placement test last year she was placed in the harder, faster paced math class. If this kid could handle the pressure I would leave her there, obviously she cannot. Yesterday she got her mid semester grade in math and it was an F. She threw up for hours. Today she is outta that math class, bye bye, no second guessing. At 12 she shouldnt carry more stress than her little girl's body can handle.

Honestly, I am about to lose my temper. And then I think If I cannot handle my emotions in a more mature way than how can I expect these kids to handle themselves? Crap this parenting shit just gets harder. Problem is I do take it seriously.

Kiddos had progress reports today. ARRRRRRRRRGHGHGHGHGHGHHHH. There I feel relieved of my most immediate tension but there is more welling to the surface.

12 yr old most studious and serious kid got an F in Math. I am not angry with said most studious child as she also tends to beat herself up, and she works damn hard. She came home again today after having a math test that she stressed herself over. She threw up in school. This would be the fifth week of school and the fourth vomiting episode. I am worn out and she is worn out. Time to move her out of the hard math class and let her get a darn A in the midlevel class. The school nurse is freaking out and is sorely convinced that there is something medically wrong with my pukey kid. I am tired of washing vomit out of her clothes. Time to cut bait, and surrender. My 12 year old is every parents dream and every parents nightmare. She worries so much about school that she makes herself sick.

The 15 year old however is a different story. Indifferent and cranky she is flunking 2 classes and therefore ineligible to be in band until her grades come up. This kid lives for band however obviously that was not enough to encourage her to get her studies done. This would just be a repeat of the circumstances last year when she flunked three classes and had to attend summer school. Her Dad and I wheedled and cajoled this child obviously to no avail and nary a lesson learned.

Today I am going military on this kid. enough F----ing around, she has lost all life accoutrements she finds important. At this point she will be cut off from all things considered important to a teen. As Dr. Phil says, she is going to earn back every bonus in her life.

I simply am at a loss as to how to inspire this kid. We are not wealthy folks, she sees what a lack of education has done for us, despite the fact that I have a college degree. I simply refuse to allow this kid to not graduate from highschool. At this point I could give a rat's ass about college. She doesn't have a clue about money or jobs that she will get with a highschool degree, but nor does she realize that she will be in a factory the rest of her life without a diploma. I am tired of her considering us the enemy and I am tired of feeling as though I am responsible for her character flaws. At this point this really feels like a situation where we need to let her screw up and then we need to let her fix it by herself. Tough choices we parents have to make.