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For privacy purposes, his name is Thomas. Thomas is a two year old boy who is brought to the fitness center's Kid's Club at least twice a week by his mother. On most mornings, he stays with us for around an hour while his mom goes off and gets sweaty doing different strenuous workouts. The first time I saw Thomas toddle into the room, I noticed the multitude of light bruises on his forehead and his pudgy arms and legs. We quickly learned where he earned his ugly trophies from: Thomas is a thrill-seeking toddler who never fails to find the most impossible ways to injure himself (although fortunately never seriously of life-threateningly). These accidents can range from him toppling over backwards while trying to lift himself up onto the knee-height table in the middle of the room to him rolling off of the beanbag that he managed to triumphantly scale, as if the soft fabric were the jutting rocks of Mount Everest. My favorite incident, although I prefer it only because of the story that it created and not because of the moment itself, was when we turned to find him struggling head-down and feet kicking towards the ceiling in another baby's carrier that he had tipped over. To him, the carrier must have presented the mouth of a cavernous cave just begging to be explored. My co-worker managed to grab his legs in one hand and pry him from the carrier before anything terrible happened. Immediately afterwards we watched in awe as he crawled off into the sunset in search of his next adventure, not a baby tear shed.
Several attendants in the Kid's Club are apprehensive about Thomas's behavior and choose to leave him in "The Car": a baby bouncer that provides a safe confinement for troublesome babies. However, I am a supporter of Thomas's risky life-style. I believe that as long as he is supervised, he is building within himself the confidence and self-assurance that many *adults* lack. With every fall he is learning just how far he can push himself, and with every tumble he is discovering just what he needs to change the next time he endeavors to run from one side of the room to the other. We are watching the birth of a world leader, an Olympic athlete, a Grammy-winning artist, or whatever he is ambitious enough to achieve in the future.