Baseball And Other Skills I Lack
By Rachel Nevergall
@rachelnevergall
"You do it like this mom."
He clasps his right hand to the left, ball in one hand, mitt in the other. He turns his body, lifts his leg, wiggles a little and then lunges the ball in my direction.
We’re playing catch, my four-year-old and I, and he determines I need lessons on how to throw a ball. He is not wrong. My struggle to even describe the scene should be proof of how little I know about baseball.
But his example is ridiculous. Even I know this doesn’t look quite right.
I decide to try it anyway. I imitate the clapping of the hands, the leg lift, and the uncomfortable wind up.
"Like this?" I flail and lunge the ball.
"Yeah! Like that!"
I wonder if I should be instructing him, showing him the proper way to throw a ball, but I hesitate. He does not take well to criticism. One minor suggestion could send him stomping off, emitting a scream larger than his tiny frame should allow. I don’t want to shift the mood, not when we are getting along so well.
***
"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.
***
"Let’s try hitting the ball now," he tells me after I complete a few warm up throws.
I passed the test, apparently, my throwing skills deemed sufficient to move on. He directs me where to stand before he moves to his position for batting.
This is usually his dad’s job, the baseball playing. But we had a hard day, he and I. There is a third baby in the family now, another person splitting my attention and patience even thinner than it was before. He recognizes this and responds appropriately. Which is to say he fights me on every request and pushes each button in order to garner my attention. This is usually my job, the battle fighting. But today, fed up by always being on the defensive side of the game, I decide to try something different. His brother is napping. The morning schedule is open. Today I choose something he loves. Today we play baseball.
I throw my first pitch, motioning the way he taught me, wiggly leg and all. But the pitch is too fast and not in his very tiny strike zone. He swings hard but misses it entirely.
"Ahhhhh!!! I can’t do this!" He throws the bat down in disgust. This is how it is with him. One wrong move and his temper flares with more speed than a fast pitch across home plate.
I should have seen this coming. Everything was going too well, the baseball playing, and us.
***
I’ve never been that good at baseball. I tried when I was younger, joined a team because my friends were, not because I had any talent. I struck out almost every time. My dad tried to help. He told me to visualize myself standing at the plate. Watch the ball coming toward me, and then picture myself swinging, making contact, and knocking that ball so hard it bounces to the back corner of the outfield. My dad was into the law of attraction before Oprah made it cool. If you believe in yourself, if you can picture it happening, it will, he told me. He said that all the best players use this strategy and studies show significant improvement in skills with a growth mindset.
I never made much improvement. No matter how many times I visualized myself hitting that ball, making contact was harder than he made it sound.
But he wasn’t just trying to make me a better player. I recognize this now as a parent myself. His motives were to first help calm me down. As I paced and fretted before every game, he sensed my anxiety. He knew how I reacted with fear when my confidence in my abilities was low. With practice, parents learn to know their children like they know themselves.
My dad wasn’t very good at talking about feelings, though. He focused more on facts. As a former baseball coach, he used this same strategy of positive thinking to motivate his players to improve their skills. When it came time to understand his daughter and her anxieties, he turned to what he knew he could do—motivate.
It didn’t make me a better player. But it did achieve his first goal. It gave me enough confidence to make it through another game. My dad was good at that.
***
"Sorry bud. That was my fault. It was a bad pitch. Let me try again." I run after the missed ball, jumping to repair the mood after his tantrum. I am quick to take blame when things fall apart, as if I can absorb his anger with my apologies like a paper towel to a mess. Shlurp. It’s gone.
He sighs dramatically, but picks up the thrown bat. Resuming his batting stance, he gives me another chance.
***
I sit on the edge of the bed in my parent’s house staring at a spot on the floor, lost in thought, except more "lost" than "in thought." As a new mom with my first baby, I don't have much capacity for coherent thoughts.
The bed feels hard under my body, a little too high for me as my legs dangle just above the floor. My eyes search for something familiar to land on, but I find nothing . These aren’t my pictures on the wall, not my knick knacks on the shelf. It is not my childhood bedroom. My parents moved to this house when I went off to college so I have always felt like a guest. I’m not comfortable here, I think, in this room, in this body, in this role. But with a spouse traveling for work this week, I escape to my parent’s home, choosing to be uncomfortable rather than alone.
I nurse my baby with the door open to the hallway, no longer concerned with modesty. My dad walks by my room and pauses in the doorway.
"Is she up from her nap?" His posture is awkward, he looks uncomfortable too. This is new for him, seeing his daughter as a parent.
"Uh huh." My effort in the conversation is weak. I don’t care to hide the look of exhaustion on my face and in my body slumped over the baby.
He hesitates for a moment, maybe pondering what to say, unsure of this new role in fatherhood.
I expect him to switch into Motivational Dad, brace myself for one of his visualization pep talks to improve my mom skills. You got this. Picture yourself as a confident mom. The one with all the answers. See yourself as what you want to be. Maybe he thinks about saying that. But he doesn’t.
"You’re a good mom," he says quietly, a gentle smile on his face.
He says nothing else and leaves me alone with my baby.
"Thank you," I whisper after him, quietly but also more confidently than I have felt in weeks.
I tuck this tiniest of speeches in the nearest recesses of my memory, knowing I will need it again someday.
***
“Mom, MOM!”
He stares at me, annoyed, mitt and hands empty of the ball.
“You missed the ball. It’s behind you.” My thoughts return to the ball game. “Mom, you have to keep your eye on the ball, okay.”
Keep my eye on the ball. Throw it this way. There were so many rules to baseball. So many ways he can remind me I am not doing it right.
I try again, concentrating on a more accurate throw. This time the ball floats toward him just in the right spot. We both hear the crack of ball to bat, watch it fly over my head and into the neighbor’s yard. I turn around to face him and my look of shock and joy matches his.
"Wahoo!! You did it!" I cheer as he runs around the yard crossing the invisible bases with pride.
I did it! I think, feeling like a kid frozen at home plate, stunned that she actually made contact with the ball. In the four years parenting this child, the wins still come as a surprise to me. With pride radiating off both our faces, I bask in the success. I’m not always very good at baseball, but I must be improving.
"That was fun, Mom. You're pretty good. Can we play again sometime?"
"Absolutely. Let’s do it again tomorrow." He smiles and takes my hand, both of us feeling like winners.
Guest essay written by Rachel Nevergall. Rachel is a mom of three and wife to a man who is WAY better at cleaning the kitchen, is a Minnesotan newbie, curator of family adventures, builder of epic train tracks, lover of all of the library books, mixer of fancy cocktails, and writer in the in-between. She shares about the confluence of her child development background and the realities of parenting on her blog and Instagram.