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

hard as she could at the blank canvas. It wasn’t a graceful throw but it did hit its mark, leaving a soccer ball–textured yellow splotch on the white field. The wet paint began to drip in uneven trickles.
    “Now, that’s what I call dribbling,” John joked.
    Then John grabbed a tennis ball, dipped it into the red paint, and followed suit.
    Then Bay created some amazing designs by shaking purple paint off the netted head of a lacrosse stick. I drop-kicked a pink-dipped football and nearly broke the garage window, but all in all it was the best art lesson I’d ever witnessed.
    Bay gained the knowledge that no matter what she chose to do, her father would find a way to support her in it.
    And then came Danny McMullen.
    Because even quirky, enigmatic little girls fall in love, and Danny McMullen was Bay’s first crush. This was in second grade. She came home after the first day of school and announced to us that Danny McMullen had blue eyes and a Pokémon backpack, and she was going to marry him.
    Toby immediately launched into a chorus of “ Bay and Danny sittin’ in a tree .” I smiled and told her I thought it was a lovely idea and floated the idea of a wedding gown with a sleek silhouette and understated beading.
    But John said nothing, nothing at all. That was how I knew that in his mind this Danny McMullen character had just become Public Enemy Number One.
    As you know, second-grade romance has a very short shelf life. Two days later, Bay came home in tears, heartbroken because Danny McMullen had told Ethan Feldman to tell Emily Pendleton to tell Bay Kennish that he didn’t like her anymore; his feelings had shifted, and the new object of his affection was Brianna Winslow, a third-grader.
    John took the news badly. Worse than Bay in fact. After a triple scoop of Chunky Monkey, Bay was over it. But John … not so much.
    “He dumped her for a third-grader? What is this Brianna, some kind of an elementary school cougar?”
    “A cougar cub,” I quipped.
    But John wasn’t having it. “Doesn’t this McMullen punk know how lucky he is that Bay even looked in his direction in the first place?”
    “You do realize we’re talking about a love affair that lasted less than forty-eight hours, right? Oh, and, by the way, she’s eight.”
    “That’s not the point. He made her cry, Kathryn.” John’s expression was one of sheer helplessness. “This was her first heartbreak.”
    “I know,” I told him gently. “And unfortunately, it won’t be her last.”
    This, of course, was the problem. John knew it was only the beginning. The world was full of Danny McMullens and Brianna Winslows. There were boys who would promise to call and then wouldn’t; there were dances she wouldn’t be invited to and valentines she wouldn’t receive; parties she’d find out about the day after they occurred and all kinds of middle school and high school drama waiting in the years ahead.
    Kids can be cruel. It happens to everyone.
    The trouble was that John just couldn’t bear the thought of it happening to Bay.
    That night, when we tucked our daughter into bed, John kissed her on the forehead. “Forget about Danny McMullen,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s his loss.”
    The following week Bay came home giddy about a new love in her life. His name was Alexander, and he’d spent the last three recess periods in the principal’s office. Luckily, John was playing in Chicago that week, so he wasn’t around to hear that his little girl had officially entered her inevitable “bad boy” phase.
    But he was there for the next one, and the one after that. Some of them he liked, some of them were lucky to get out of our house alive; some of them broke her heart, and some, it has to be said, had their hearts broken by her.
    John was careful to teach her that there was a right way and a wrong way to break a boy’s heart; naturally, he said, she wouldn’t always be interested in the boys who were interested in her (have you seen