Wild Thing

One thing that we noticed about Juan Pablo pretty early on is that he has no fear...of anything. He literally threw himself into learning to walk- he would throw all his weight forward, and then will his legs to move quickly to keep up, face planting more often than not before reaching his intended destination. Eventually, his balance improved and his legs started moving fast enough to keep up with the rest of him (we joke that he never actually learned to walk, he just went straight to running). Then he decided that he couldn't be bothered to sit down before going down the slides at the playground. After a couple tumbles that resulted from trying to walk/run down a slide, I thought maybe he'd caught on. But no. It wasn't until about halfway through this summer that he started actually sitting at the top of the slide. And I get the feeling that he only does it to humor me, and that he still thinks that running down a tall curvy slide is no problem.

This summer we took a couple afternoons to drive out to the west side of the state and spend the afternoon at various Lake Michigan beaches. The first time, I fully expected Juan Pablo to be a little wary of this seemingly never-ending body of water. But he took off straight for the water as soon as he could free himself from my attempts to slather him with sunscreen. He ran right into the water, which is never very warm, with waves that were over his head pushing him over and hitting him in the face. I caught up to him at this point, and scooped him up, thinking he would be upset and slightly traumatized by the experience, but instead he just laughed and wriggled out of my arms to go back in for more.

Sometimes I say that it would be nice if he would develop just a little bit of fear. I think what I really mean is that I hope he develops a solid understanding of the laws of physics, and maybe a little bit of common sense. I love the way that he throws himself fully into everything that he does, the way that he's not afraid to explore something new, and the pure joy with which he approaches every little new adventure. I hope that we can encourage him to hang on to that, even as his adventures become grander, and despite the tumbles that may result from time to time.