Baseball and Other Skills I Lack

“ ‘It will be easier to communicate when he has more words, don’t you think?’ I deliberated with my husband as we collapsed into bed at night. This was my nightly routine, scrolling through the replay video of our day, searching for where I went wrong, where it all fell apart. It wasn’t the first time I had drudged up justification that week to explain away the explosive behavior of the 15 month old sleeping in the room next door.

‘I think he must be teething,’ I said to my sister over the phone, when his screams in the background drowned out our conversation.

‘They all get frustrated at this age when they are learning to walk,’ I rationalized sheepishly to the childcare provider at the gym after she interrupted my workout to let me know ‘it wasn’t working.’

I was never without an excuse, a grasp at something, anything, to explain why he wasn’t what I expected. He blindsided me.

My oldest wasn’t like this at 15 months old. After the fumbling plays of our first year as mother and daughter, parenting a toddler felt like a home run. She was cooperative, content, easy going. The toddler years with her were, dare I say, fun. So when it was his turn to blow out the first candle, I breathed out too, with reassurance that we were about to enter the ‘good years.’

I was wrong. He was different.

As soon as his little brain figured out autonomy, he seized it. As soon as he found his voice, he used it. Movement, opinions, emotions— all more dynamic than the last. Everyday was a new challenge to my parenting playbook. I tried to be calm and patient, tried to use quiet reminders and offer alternatives to his wild play. But it seemed no matter what intense behavior he threw at me, I always missed.

He was hard. And I wasn’t very good at parenting a hard child.”

Read the rest of the essay on parenting a “hard child” over on Coffee and Crumbs.