Married at 18, first child (thirteen months later) at 19, second child at 21, third child at 23, and I was 25 when I had Scott.  I was drowning in children with no clue what to do with them.  I really wish I could go back and do a do-over with the first two.  I didn't have a hand book, and no family.  And few friends--really, I was on my own.  Ken was always up in the air somewhere.  Literally.

By the time I had Scott, I kinda knew what I was doing.  But nothing I had learned on the others applied to Scott.  He didn't play with toys--ever.  He threw them.  Into planters, light fixtures, vases, etc., etc.  I would buy him puzzles with cars, trucks, animals, I tried them all.  He threw the pieces.  When the girls and I would play Monopoly--Scott threw the hotels, motels, game pieces and anything else he could get his hands on.  He didn't throw randomly.  He threw to hit something that was empty.

He wouldn't let me read to him.  The girls loved to read or have me read to them.  Not Scott.  He wanted out.  OUT.  I kept trying, and failing.  But his accuracy in his tosses got better.  He could stand in the yard and hit the chimney--inside the chimney.  One day I heard something splatting, checked, and he was throwing tomatoes towards the roof.  Thank God it wasn't eggs.

When he got a little older and found out that there were games that had names (!!) that at he could throw stuff in--he was ecstatic.  Names like football, fooz-ball, baseball, kick ball, any-kind-of-ball.   Then it was just a game of bribery to get him to read, and in school, to do his work.  It was a tradeoff to him.  If he made good grades, he got to go out for recess.  If he made good grades, he could play ball all year round.  So he made excellent grades.  No problem.

I never had to bribe the girls.  They did what they were supposed to do because they loved to read.  Loved school.  Loved to learn new stuff.  Scott endured it all to play ball.  And by the time he was nine or ten, he would tell me that the other guys on his baseball team didn't try--that they weren't any good.  I explained to him that it was their first year--that he had been throwing a ball since before he was two and had a head start on them.  It didn't convince him.  He just thought they just didn't work hard enough.  Raising Scott stretched me to the limit.  He was a fantastic ball player.  A true natural.  He still plays.  Referring, or Umping, running up and down the field like he was still ten years old.  Loving every minute of it.  Doing what he has to do to get out there on the field.