The child dare devil

My oldest son who is soon to celebrate his third birthday is a typical boy.  He loves trains, tractors, cars, monster trucks, playing in the sand and dirt, collecting sticks and stones and etc.  I have however, noticed a shred of cautiousness in him, to which I being his mother, am thankful.  When driving his battery operated truck he will stop and look at his daddy to get a go ahead nod before driving off the short ledge between our garages.  He will eyeball a jump off the porch and hesitate a moment before taking it.  This gives me a measure of comfort that there is some thought going into all his boyish ways of jumping, running and climbing.


Then on the other hand there is his little brother.  Little brother is 14 months old and a dare devil if I have ever seen one.  From the time he started walking he was also climbing up on things.  He climbs up on their little rocking chair, stands up holds on to the back and rocks back and forth laughing.  He walks to the edge of the sofa and sees how close he can put his foot to the edge without falling off.  Whenever I hear his big brother say "that is very dangerous", I go running in to see what little brother is doing!


Today, was another beautiful day with unseasonably warm temps and we were playing outside most of the day.  Little brother's favorite outside game is to climb up the one side of the porch and walk around to the front and go down the three steps.  Of course, this makes me nervous.  But, he can maneuver the steps surprisingly well, so I give him the freedom to do so and it has not been a problem.  Well, today he somehow tripped and fell down one step and hit his head.  Thankfully, it was just a brush burn but it did create quite a goose-egg on his forehead.  Oh, I felt awful and he cried.  Sometimes I think he is just at that difficult age of not quite knowing what his limits are.  But, then I think I didn't go through all of this with big brother!  Little brother definitely seems to have the dare devil approach to everything he does!


I watched him later in the day climb in to the back of their Tonka dump truck and the momentum of him climbing in gave it foreword motion and it started to roll down the hill with him riding in the back.  He also went up and down the same steps he fell on at least a dozen times after the fall.  This evening he climbed up on to a wooden bench we have and was standing their doing some kind of crazy dance and laughing.  He knows he is not to climb up there and does it for attention.  He also likes to get a rise out of us and thinks that No means, that was funny do it again.


WOW, it is amazing how different each child is.  We have challenges with both.  But I get especially anxious thinking about what the future could hold for this little dare devil boy of mine.  I can definitely see a thrill seeking streak in him that has to come from his daddy...right!