Every once in awhile your kid throws you a curveball. A true, out-of-left field kind of moment that whallops you.
I had one of those moments today when my son started his latest round of baseball practice. I was running late from work and had the fabulous blessing of having my mom take him to practice. I showed up about 15 minutes after the scheduled beginning of said practice to find them all standing by the side of the parking lot. Grandma, would-be ballplayer, and 5-year-old didn't go to school today because she was sick, daughter. At first glance I assumed I had made a mistake - they were standing around in various stages of frustration because they were at the wrong field or they were there on the wrong day -- it was definitely something I'd done, right?
As I hopped out of the car intent on fixing things my mom informed me that my bouncy, peppy, not great ball player but known for his incredible team spirit and great attitude wouldn't go into the practice because he was "shy." My kid is many things and shy sometimes (rarely) fits the bill but it's only for about a minute.
I assumed this was one of those times, that he'd grab my hand, we'd head off to the field, and I'd send him on his merry way as I had oh so many times before. Oh no, this was no garden variety sort of shyness. This was unable to tear himself off the fence shy. I was flummoxed. I tried to get him to open up about why he was shy. (My son's a talker, opening up is usually the LAST thing I have to work hard to get him to do...) I talked about how he was late for practice and that wasn't fair to the coaches and his team mates. I talked about how he couldn't play his game on Saturday if he didn't show up for practice today. I asked if he was scared. I set a time limit for deciding if he was staying or going...Eventually I stopped talking because I was out of ideas about how to help him.
It was only when we were going over to the coach to tell him that we were leaving (a good 45 minutes after practice started) that things changed. I said "my son is being unusually shy", the coach walked over, had a quick chat, and lured him out onto the field with the option of whacking the stuffing out of the ball. As my son suited up in his batting gear the tide turned. In the blink of 3 or 4 eyes the kid I know best was out there making jokes with his new best friends, chasing after balls, rolling around on the ground, and asking me if we could stay for the extended practice, "please?"
Where did today come from and is it coming back? How will it manifest itself this time? While I didn't outright fail my son today I could feel that I wasn't giving him everything he needed. I'm so used to being able to solve his problems quickly (dirty face? Here's a wipe...hungry? Here's a snack...) that I didn't have the tools I needed for his complex conflicting emotions. Apparently I need a whole new playbook because the kid I know so well is evolving every day and I'm just running frantically around the bases trying to keep up. Time for mom to grow too.
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