When Madison was just about 6 or 7 months old she would crawl up onto the couch and throw her body weight forward onto the pillow on the floor below. You might think at such a young age she just lost her balance. You would be wrong. With the lunging off the couch came extreme laughter, satisfaction and a scary sense of thrill in the eyes of such a young baby. Not to mention the fact that she would do it over and over and over again. She loved it. It was her favorite thing to do. When Madison was 9 months old she could run. Now i know that there are a lot of babies that may walk at this age even though it is early. Natalie for example was one of them. Madison never walked, she just ran.
She found a way to get the same type of thrill out of this experience as throwing herself to the floor. She did it by running by her 2 older siblings grabbing their favorite toy and just kept running (while laughing of course) as they dropped to the ground in utter tears and devastation that they were no longer in possession of their toys. The thrill and satisfaction? Yes they were still there. She was small, she was a lot younger, but she would not be out done. They could push her down, but she would find a way to overcome, to win, to not be left behind. How did she do it you ask? By following these 4 simple steps: 1.seek out weakness
2. target it
3. attack
4. leave competition in the dust
(preferably on their hands and knees crying.)
From these two experiences before the age of one we see two major factors coming into play of professional athletes. No fear, just thrill, all that matters is the rush. Also the competitive drive it takes to take out those bigger, stronger, and more experienced than you. The drive to be better than those around you. It's there, it was by birth. She was born to be this way.
OK, so now for those of you who are saying that it also takes skill and coordination, I'm getting to that.
Madison, 18 months: We put her into gymnastics. She quickly excelled to the best in her class. In fact a lot of the times she was bored with her class. She could do a seat drop, a straddle jump, pike, tuck, blah blah blah.
These were no problem to her after the first couple of weeks. The teacher was good. She gave her a little bit harder things to do on the tramp. Mostly just combining the different kinds. She had Madison demonstrate these things for the rest of the class. Madison was still bored. One day while stretching she was watching this 14 year old practicing her front walkovers. Madison was intrigued. She came home that week and kept flipping and falling all over the house. She did it over and over and over again until she finally did it. At this point she was probably about 22 months old.
Now you might be sitting there thinking that I'm just an over proud mother. I would be willing to consider this except for the fact that i have 4 children and i don't think that the other three of them are destined for this type of future. They are great kids. Wonderful, but they weren't doing walkovers at 22 months old. They were happy with what their teacher was having them do at class. Content, like most kids just to be having fun with peers.
Anyway,
Madison 3: We were invited to go skating with our friends the Williams. Now this was my kids first time skating.
Madison had to wear the skates that strap on your shoes due to her size. These might be a little easier to skate on, i admit. The point is that Madison had no problem, she just went. Like she seems to do with a lot of things. While I was walking around the rink with her she saw the referee guy skating backwards. The competitive drive, the thrill, the will to not be out done flashed in those little brown eyes. With sheer determination she looks up at me and says, "mommy, I can do that." No fear, no doubt, she could do it. Why, because she saw it was humanly possible, so naturally she knew she could. So she turned her little self around and (I hope all of you can guess this by now) she did it. Didn't fall, didn't think anything of it. She just did it.
Earlier this summer we had use of the pool for about 2 weeks. Madison told her dad that she could swim. Madison jumped in, she swam to Nathan. I guess she can swim, apparantly she is part fish. (just another option for Olympic gold.)Now, Madison was watching TV with her dad a few weeks ago. The X games were on. The one where the guy fell 4 stories and knocked his shoes off his feet. He should of been dead but somehow walked away.
She saw the guys on there bikes going off the jumps. She looks up at her daddy and says, "daddy, I can do that." Same as roller skating. Same as swimming. This one is a little scarier. We tell her you have to learn to ride your bike without training wheels first. Madison just turned 4 a month ago. Madison can ride her bike without training wheels. Madison wants to go to a skate park. I'm happy i don't know where one is.
The only reason Madison won't compete is if she just doesn't have use of all of her limbs. Her not being afraid of anything has its down falls. When I went out to the movies the other day my sister had to convince Madison that if she jumped off of the second floor balcony with one balloon in her hand (as seen on cartoons) she wouldn't fly.
Madison kept telling her it would work. Jenn in exasperation told Madison that she would die if she jumped. Madison just looked at her and said, "so, I'll just go live with Heavenly Father." So here we conclude with my daughter, age 4 years 1 month, having no fear of death. I sure do hope she survives her childhood with the use of all her limbs, but then if she doesn't, there's always the Special Olympics.
