Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey by Kathryn Kennish, ABC Family

were all vying to have Toby on their team roster.
    And that’s when things started to go south.
    Because as good as he was, Toby just didn’t love it. He liked the father-son time, and he loved making John and me proud on game day. The problem was that given the choice Toby would much rather be sitting at the baby grand piano in our living room than in the garage oiling his mitt. Music came as easily to him as baseball did. He could play by ear, and when he started guitar lessons his teachers were blown away by the speed with which he picked it up.
    If John was disappointed by this turn of extracurricular events, he did everything he could not to show it. I knew he missed those weekend afternoons coaching Toby in the yard; I’d often see him throw a yearning glance out the window toward the corner of the yard where they used to hold batting practice, but I think he knew there was no point in pushing it.
    Sports are optional; love is unconditional.
    And then Daphne arrived and she had “Varsity” written all over her. I was so happy for John. Watching him play that first game of HORSE with Daphne in the driveway was a moment that was filled with tenderness. She not only had his physical grace and keen eye, she had his competitive spirit as well. It was as though he were at last being validated, as though everything he knew about himself was being reflected back to him in the best possible way. I would stand at the kitchen sink, sudsing a roasting pan, and I’d hear the thump of the basketball against the pavement and the squealing of sneaker soles as one them broke for the basket.
    It was one of the most rewarding sounds I’d ever heard.
    But if there was a negative aspect to John and Daphne bonding over “hoops,” it was watching Bay adjust to it.
    It’s no secret that Bay was not a jock. Even at a young age she was bright and creative; she was not weird, she was unconventional. But according to John (and rightfully so), even unconventional kids require exercise.
    I couldn’t argue with that, and besides that, I loved sports. I had been captain of the Wofford College women’s tennis team and still enjoyed the occasional mixed doubles game at the country club. I saw nothing but good things coming from Bay taking part in some manner of organized sports. So Bay was herded off to youth soccer.
    It was an unqualified disaster.
    I watched from the bleachers as my poor little girl got trounced by a swarm of other little girls in ponytails and matching jerseys.
    When soccer was over, Bay climbed into the SUV looking not humiliated (as I had dreaded she would) but utterly bewildered and more than a little bit pissed off.
    “Why did you make me do that?” she demanded.
    “Don’t worry, kiddo,” John said in that confident “I can fix this” tone of his. “We’ll work on it as soon as we get home.”
    “I’d rather just paint,” Bay informed him. (She’d picked up her first brush the year before, when she was five, and had fallen in love with the activity of painting.)
    But there would be no painting that day. There would be dribbling drills and stop-and-kick drills and a crash course in the proper running technique. I stood there watching her struggle—and watching him struggle to teach her how not to struggle—for what seemed like forever.
    By dinnertime, Bay had had it.
    And John knew it.
    “I’m sorry I’m so bad at this,” she grumbled. “I get it if you don’t like me anymore.”
    Half an hour later, John summoned us to the garage, where he had an enormous canvas propped against the wall, a six-by-six-foot square of snowy white unconditional love. He’d already opened several large paint cans. Then he handed Bay the hated soccer ball. It took her a minute to grasp his purpose, but when she did, her chubby little face (still smeared with dirt from the day’s athletic exertions) lit up with a huge grin.
    John and I watched as she dipped the ball carefully into the yellow paint. Then she hurled it as