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I was really exhausted. Like, I could barely get up some mornings. I would fall asleep if I was just sitting still. I would ask Curt a question and forget it by the time I got to the kitchen. I had always prided myself on being organized and on top of things. This made no sense at all.
    “You need to go to a doctor,” my mom said. My father echoed that sentiment.

    “I don’t have time,” I said.
    But then Curt chimed in and insisted I go. The regular doctor sent me to an endocrinologist. The endocrinologist discovered that I had Hashimoto’s disease. Long story short: My thyroid wasn’t working. I’d have to go on medication and be on it for the rest of my life.
    It’s a good thing I went. I don’t know how long I could have kept all the balls in the air the way I needed to without addressing my health. I had a lot on my plate. Life was hectic. But it was also good. Curt and I felt blessed with three beautiful—highly active—kids, and fortunate to have the chance to continue to make this crazy baseball life work as best we could.

three
    The Longest Car Ride Begins
    I TELL MYSELF THE REASON I DIDN’T NOTICE ANYTHING DIFFERENT about Grant during the first few years of his life is that I was completely overwhelmed.
    Gehrig and Gabby were still pretty little, so I was juggling three kids on my own almost all the time. When Grant would scream and cry and fuss in his baby seat as I drove the kids to visit Curt at spring training, I didn’t stop to think, “Gee, the first two didn’t cry quite as often, now did they?” I was too busy making sure everyone was dressed and fed and packed up in the car for our many road trips. I figured that chaos—and crying and screaming—were fairly normal, given our situation. I kick myself now for not paying closer attention.
    As Roberto Clemente once said, baseball has been very good to me. I loved so many aspects of our life during the years Curt was playing. There were thrilling experiences—going to the World Series four times, winning three times, once with the Diamondbacks and twice with the Red Sox. Having grown up with very little, I’m very grateful for all that the game has brought into our lives and all that it has afforded me.

    Still, as well versed as I’d been in moving and life alone before Curt and I had kids, nothing could have prepared me for what being a baseball wife meant once we had three kids. Having my husband essentially out of the house for eight or nine months of the year meant raising Gehrig, Gabby, and Grant mostly alone. On top of that there were all those moves. The kids would go in and out of preschools and schools, and I’d have to make sure that all the transitions went smoothly. Change was a constant in our life, and I had to stay on top of it.
    I might have made things easier for myself by getting some help, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Determined to be a great stayathome mother like my mom had been, I refused to get a nanny. Even though we had struggled financially when I was growing up, my mother felt it was important to be at home for us instead of getting a job. In the late seventies, when other girls showed up at school with the latest designer clothes, I remember thinking, Why can’t she go to work so I can have those things, too? But in hindsight, I understand how valuable it was that she was there every day when my younger brother and I went off to school, and when we returned. She kept her eye out for us at all times—and for all the other kids in the neighborhood, too. She was the neighborhood matriarch, a fun mom everyone loved. She always made sure we enjoyed being kids, festively decorating the house for all the holidays, from Halloween to Christmas to Easter.
    I admired the model my mother had set for me, and with three kids of my own, I felt that getting babysitters all the time or hiring a nanny would mean I wasn’t living up to her image. More than that, I was selfconscious about people judging me now