Before you’re a parent, a crying kid is just a crying kid.
Then you have your own, and suddenly you become a true connoisseur of crying. You know the way they cry when they’re hungry. That peculiar coughing cry when they’re overtired. The way they sound when they’ve woken early from a nap and won’t be going back to sleep, and the way they sound when they probably will. The scared cry, the hurt cry, the angry cry. That last one is the one I’m thinking about tonight.