After having our first son who was so well behaved, it came as a bit of a shock when our second turned out to be such a daredevil. He’s way more than one step ahead of us and we never know what he was going to come up with next.
When he was 2 (and we still don’t know how he managed to do it), he lifted a full length mirror off it’s wall fixtures, only to then drop it on his feet. Then there’s the time he though it was hysterical to push a watermelon off the kitchen bench, spilling it’s seedy pink flesh all over the floor. Or the numerous occasions he fell down the stairs. His Father and I have predicted by the time he is 5, that kid is going to have broken at least one bone in his body.
Fast approaching his 4th birthday, my daredevil son has lost three teeth already. Once when hurling himself over the arm of the chair, misjudging the distance and knocking a tooth out on the on a door handle. And then eight months later at the local playground. I heard a bang, followed by a wailing scream. My son then came down the slide with blood pouring from his mouth. “Not again,” I thought. After lots of blood and a few checks I discover two top teeth knocked out, next to where he had lost the first one. Now he has a giant three-teeth-wide gap in his mouth.
But more than his total disregard for his personal being, it’s his intelligence that stumps me. My jaw dropped when he was reaching for the TV remote placed high out of reach. He stretched for it, couldn’t get it, then walked away. I though that was the end of it, but no. He walked back in the room with a thick telephone directory, put it on the floor and then stood on it to reach again for the wanted item. Still out of his grasp but yet to be deterred, he went for another telephone directory. Now the perfect height, he snatched the remote and ran then away laughing. I was amazed, and a little proud at the same time.
My youngest son is 18 months and already showing the same daredevil streak as his brother. I hope this time we can keep one step ahead of him. My kids are far from unique and pretty tame compared to some, but they never fail to scare their parents.
My son will be 5 in October. Let’s hope he proves us wrong and keeps them bones intact!
Louise Carr is from the UK and is the mother of three boisterous boys.
