Free The Best Kind of Different: Our Family's Journey With Asperger's Syndrome by Shonda Schilling, Curt Schilling

in those days Gehrig often spent more time with Curt than I was able to.
    Then came Gabby. She was the princess. All she had to do to get her daddy’s love was climb in Curt’s lap. Curt was seemingly incapable of yelling at her, or saying no to her. She knew that even though Curt didn’t crawl on the floor and wrestle with her the way he did with Gehrig, he still worshipped her. Gabby never really needed much from anyone anyway. She loved everyone, and didn’t worry about how much time any one person spent with her.
    When Grant came along, it was a different story. Curt was good with Grant as a baby, but Grant was the third. It was the classic birth order story: You take tons of pictures with the first, a few with the second, and barely any with the third. Curt and I didn’t love Grant any less, of course, but the novelty of parenthood had been eclipsed by the daytoday realities of having three kids and a crazy baseballcentric family life.
    The other kids played with Grant, so there was plenty of attention to go around for him—even if there wasn’t as much coming from his dad—and when Grant was about three, it became clear that he didn’t care whether hehad Curt’s approval or not. A relationship with Grant meant you had to work. He argued constantly, pouted a lot, and had big, loud, messy meltdowns. He was a different kind of child than the other two had been, for sure. It required more effort on Curt’s part, and sadly there wasn’t much payoff for his effort. Grant seemed aloof no matter what Curt did, and Curt’s time was limited.
    Part of the problem with Grant was that he didn’t always seem to have respect for adults—and that included Curt and me. Because of Curt’s relationship with his father, respect was critically important to him, and this complicated his interactions with Grant. Curt thought like I did—old school. When our parents yelled, they had our attention and we respected them. We figured it would be the same with our kids, so when they weren’t behaving, we yelled. For the most part, the others responded to that. But not Grant. He wouldn’t listen, and then we’d have to resort to measures that would make him melt down. If Curt grabbed him by the arm, Grant would scream as if Curt were killing him. We had no idea what to make of it. It was a big mess. Grant couldn’t see that Curt was angry. Meanwhile, Curt was hellbent on getting control of his kid, no matter what. To make matters worse, Grant would get nervous when being scolded, and he would let out this nervous giggle that could make you twice as mad.
    When Grant was hurt, he wanted nothing to do with Curt. I can imagine that was painful for Curt. It was tough on me, too. I was exhausted from being the one Grant wanted all day. I was the constant in Grant’s life. I was safe. I wasn’t going anywhere, unlike Curt, who was away so much.
    By the time we got to Boston, it was very clear to me that Curt and Grant weren’t close, and it bothered me. Not knowing any better at the time, I thought Curt wasn’t trying. I knew that it couldn’t be easy, but I thought that if he would only put time into Grant, they would eventually click the way he and Gehrig did. I leaned on Curt a little to try and get him to make the first moves. I wanted him to take Grant to the ballpark with him. But when I finally managed to convince Curt to take Grant to the ballpark, Grant refusedto go, which of course frustrated me no end. Here I was fighting for him and he didn’t care. I wanted them to spend time together, but it was so much work that Curt would yell loudly at him and Grant would completely shut down.
    Occasionally, Grant would agree to go with Curt to the clubhouse, but it didn’t go too well. Grant elicited mixed feelings from the other players there. They all loved him because he was so adult when he spoke with them, but they were also wary of him because his behavior was so random and unpredictable.
    Since Grant had no interest in