Post a true life little kid, risky behavior story....

[Zookeeper]

I'll start:

When my two boys and one girl were little, I was always hearing about how little boys were so scary because of their risk taking behavior. However, my boys were always fairly cautious, while my daughter's favorite thing to do was to swing as high as possible on the playground swingset and....jump off! And she once climbed most of the way up a 50 ft spruce tree.

She was also the only total grub-monster of the three when it came to her clothes.

I've also always thought that the primary job of a parent with toddlers is to follow them around, with hands extended, to prevent them from inadvertently killing themselves.

[Redstone]

1. We used to play a game called "timber." Three or four of us would climb a tree, then

one or two of us would chop the tree down with an axe.

Those of us in the tree would ride it down, hoping that the branches (we were clinging to the trunk) would cushion the impact enough that we wouldn't break any bones.

Most of the time, we didn't break anything.

Redstone

[LaraMN]

2. Yeah. You ALWAYS win these kind of contests!

:rofl:

[otherlander]

3. Where were you

that nobody killed you for cutting their trees down?

[Redstone]

14. Out in the woods. That was over 40 years ago, when there was always an "out in the woods" area

available pretty much wherever you lived.

Redstone

[Zookeeper]

6. Wow! That's really creative....

I love it, even though I'm really glad my kids didn't think of it!

:rofl:

[Redstone]

15. Nah, not creative, just spectacularly idiotic. I was real good at "spectacularly idiotic" for

many years. Until it got to where it hurt too much.

Redstone

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. We did stuff like that, but

with ladders and whatnot. If we'd cut down a tree, bones would've been broken. :scared:

Probably the coolest thing we did was set up a "jungle course" in the back yard. You had to run around a shed that was like two feet from the fences with various thorny flora in the way, go across the monkey bars, climb the walnut tree about 20 feet and ring a cowbell we hung up there, drop down, run up this little hill and roll down it, zig-zag through the raspberry vines, then sprint about 25 yards and vault a big sawhorse.

Nobody ever got really injured, though Bob did once gash his knee and I got a big scrape down my entire left forearm.

Dog, I loved bein' a kid. :D

[Redstone]

26. "OBSTACLE COURSE!!!" We had that too! Damn, was it fun.

Redstone

[VelmaD]

4. I used to have my dog...

pull me along on my skateboard. Once we got going and I couldn't stop and ended up hitting a patch of gravel. Got a rock stuck in my hand when I fell. Had to go to the emergency room to have it dug out (but not until my parents had spent an hour trying to do it themselves...and they both worked at the fucking hospital for fucksake).

And no, it didn't stop me from doing it again. *snort*

[Zookeeper]

7. OMG....

It's the hour your parents spent trying to dig it out BEFORE going to the hospital that really gets me. ;( :scared: :scared: :scared:

[VelmaD]

12. they were insane

I love 'em...but jeebus h christ on a trailer hitch.

It gets better. At the time I was a serious pianist (did that for quite a while actually) so they were digging around amongst nerves I REALLY FUCKING NEEDED. When I got to the emergency room my family doctor happened to be in the hospital and heard about what had happened. He came down and took over personally to make sure I suffered NO nerve damage. Gave my parents some shit.

It was surreal. I was seriously squicked by needles at the time and remember they didn't turn my head so I had to watch while they dug the rock out and sewed the hole up. And as I was walking out of the ER I remember looking down and seeing the needle in my arm when they gave me the tenanus shot (couldn't feel it due to the anesthetic) and nearly passed out.

[otherlander]

5. 50? Please.

I was at least 80 feet up in a Norway Spruce in my yard.

And the time I drank the water that I found next to the railroad tracks... But that was just about a month ago, so I guess it doesn't really count.

[Zookeeper]

9. Well, our spruce was only 50 ft tall....

thankfully.

As far as the water, how's your immune system?

[otherlander]

11. Well...

I didn't get giardhia. (sp?) :)

[EstimatedProphet]

8. When I was 6 we all used to share needles

[Zookeeper]

10. Pine needles?

Needles in a haystack?

:freak:

[momophile]

13. my little sister and I used to play hide and seek with axes

this was on a farm. we never killed each other.

my older sister threw a hammer halfway through my bedroom door trying to get me. she didn't.

[Zookeeper]

16. 'Sounds like a bad '60's drive-in horror movie....

I'm glad you survived!

:rofl:

[momophile]

19. sometimes we got a tad bored. musta been in winter... nt

[EFerrari]

18. There was no functioning adult in our home from the time

I was 11 to 16, and my brother was 4 to 9. Living was pretty risky, especially with me cooking him dinner every night. Hell, EATING could kill ya. :rofl:

Maybe I'll have the ovarian fortitude to ask for his forgiveness one of these days.

[Zookeeper]

20. Hmmm. I had a similar situation....

my adults mostly functioned, but were never there.

I didn't have to feed anyone but myself, so I could stretch the boundaries of what constituted "dinner."

You must have matured quickly to have taken responsibility for feeding your little brother. You were a great sister!

:hug:

[EFerrari]

21. Well, we all got out alive. And Mom and I learned how to cook

at the same time. And my brother's gastro-intestinal system seems to be intact. Whew!

This Mothers' Day, the three of us will all be grateful for the last 30 years and how close we all came to not having them.

Cheers, Zookeeper. :toast:

[MsKandice01]

22. My brother used to sit in a milk crate tied to a skateboard

And, after being given a push, he would roll down the sidewalk (on a pretty steep incline) and he would eventually come to rest after having run up onto someone's lawn. He could have EASILY ended up in the street though and right into an oncoming car, face to bumper and there would have been no way for him to stop himself.

I wasn't much better though. I remember us going down that same steep incline on our bikes, with our bikes TIED TOGETHER END TO END. I was second to the back of the line once and fell off my bike and the girl behind me road right over my stomach.

I have more stories than that but these are just a few.

[Zookeeper]

24. Boy, when you look at the number of actual accidents...

compared to the number of "should be" accidents, I can only surmise that kids have built-in guardian angels.

I have never heard of tying bikes together! Do you remember what you were all expecting to happen? (Maybe a giant bicycle built for three?)

There are some wonderfully creative (if dangerous) ideas for fun on this thread. ;)

[MsKandice01]

28. I have absolutely no clue what the rationale was behind it...

Someone just said, "hey, let's tie our bikes together!" and the rest of us said, "Uhhh...okay!"

[Zookeeper]

31. Yeah, that was a dumb question on my part....

isn't the essence of these childhood adventures that no one stops to question "why?"

:hi:

[texanwitch]

23. I quess the most risky childhood behavior would have been riding a railroad car to

Galveston, Texas from Houston, Texas for weekend.

We were 11 to 13 years old and we camped out on the beach for the night and jumped a train car back to railyard.

What a stupid thing to do, we could have been killed.

[Zookeeper]

25. My goodness. Did your parents know about that?

Most kids these days are barely allowed to leave their yards!

'Sounds like you were lucky enough for your adventure to have been fun. Glad you made it home in one piece!

:hug:

[texanwitch]

30. No one knew what we did.

We had a lot freedom back then.

When I was living in the city I lived a old neighborhood next to a railyard and woods.

Lots of open spaces for to kids to play in.

We would campout in the woods if we could talk a older brother or father to camp out with us.

We would just leave for the day and come home for dinner.

Our parents never seem to worry about us.

I feel sorry for kids today who real never know freedom like we had.

[XemaSab]

35. When my grandpa and his brother were little

their dad would drive them up into the woods near Yosemite and leave them there for the summer.

He'd come up once every couple weeks to resupply them with canned food. :D

[dropkickpa]

38. Oh yeah

That's ow it was for us, gone at dawn back when the street lights came on. We roamed all over the placeeither on foot or on our bikes. Now people are afraid to let their kids play in the backyard without an adult :eyes:

I let Dropkid play out front without me being out there all the time, which apparently is a horrible thing to do according to some. There's 10 gazillion kids on our block and all the moms know each other, we yell at each others kids indescriminately. There's older ones and younger ones, and they all pretty much watch out for each other. None of us are "helicopter" moms.

[dropkickpa]

39. wrong place

[davsand]

58. I let my (almost) ten year old play outside without us.

We live in a VERY small town with several kids in the surrounding houses. The kids pretty much run at will and where ever they are at meal time is where they land... Today I did PBJs for four at lunch time, tomorrow it will probably be somebody else (Maybe not, however, with it being Mother's Day. The kids might all be stuck going to the Grandma's houses.)

Our back yard opens up into the school yard and we seem to be a neighborhood meeting spot. We have a steady stream of kids at the door every day and my kid carries a walkie talkie so we can call her when we need to. They all know where I keep the paper cups and they know to ask for extra sugar in lemonade because they ALL refuse to drink the "Diet Stuff."

I have noticed, however, that when we cookout there do seem to be more kids at mealtime. Now that summer is here I probably need to start buying more hot dogs and beans than I currently do. None of the Moms seem to mind, and I swear I have had times when my kid will come home and tell me I need to ask so-and-so's Mom how to make something because she liked it when she ate it at their house. Similarly, I have had Moms ask me how I make something.

One of the reasons I am willing to live out here and drive a bit further to work is because I want my kid to have this kind of life. I WANT her to be a kid, and I want her to know what it is to be able to run and play and not be parked in front of a tv set all day. Today we had ball practice with the kids in the morning and then we flew kites and had lunch. They all ran and played up to about 5:30 this evening and then everybody started drifting home for dinners and baths (I'd hope anyway--some of those kids were grubby!)

I suppose some folks would see this as "risky" but I really don't. I know "bad people" can drive, but I also know that any car in town that isn't recognized is an object of scrutiny. It is a VERY small town.


Laura

[Zookeeper]

60. We live in a small inner ring suburban neighborhood....

and that's just what it's been like around here. I feed people's kids, they feed mine, the go where they want within the neighborhood, and into the woods or to a nearby convenience store with permission.

It's great for the kids and fun for me to get to know neighborhood families. (It's sometimes a bit overwhelming to have ten or more kids in my house. )

:hi:

[dropkickpa]

71. I live in the city, albeit a quiet residential neighborhood

But I always grew up running amok. We had so much fun and explored a lot. We found a bat cave, which was just awesome, we roamed the woods that butt our neighborhood and got to see lots of neat wildlife (we also snuck into the zoo on a regular basis, so saw a lot more wildlife that way). Th rent in this neighborhood is more expensive than other areas of the city (although much cheaper than some, too) but I am willing to pay it because of several reasons. I grew up here, a bunch of my family live here, the neighborhood organizations including sports, I know the people, it's safe, and there's not really anyplace I DON'T know here (for when Dropkid gets older and I let her leave the block). And I'm about two blocks from the zoo (can hear the lions roaring for food in the evening, how cool is that??).

The people that live here have all, for the most part, lived here their whole lives and we all know each other for the most part. It's like living n a small town but with the benefits of living in the city too.

[alphafemale]

27. Where to begin....maybe where we would slingshot ourselves...

From the top of one tree to another. We'd get up about 50' or so to the top of the tree. Then we'd start rocking back and forth until we could let go and get air time to fling ourselves into a nearby tree.

[Zookeeper]

29. ....

That's a new one! What kind of tree?!? I'm guessing you weren't afraid of heights.

Did anyone ever get hurt?

:scared:

[marzipanni]

32. I don't think it was intentional risk taking (to the degree it turned out to be)

but when my now 12-year-old son was about 3 1/2 my husband and I heard, "thump, thump, thump, thump bang!" coming from the vicinity of the basement stairs.:scared: About three feet across from the top of the stairs sits a shoulder-height four-drawer file cabinet. My husband keeps a bunch of pretty heavy tools in the top drawer. Unbeknownst to us, our son realized it held something interesting (ahh, the allure of daddy's toys!) so he pulled the lower drawers out enough to climb up their sides. When he pulled the heavy tool drawer out, its weight, combined with his, made the file cabinet tip forward and that drawer rolled out and flew out over the top stairs and my son ended up sitting sideways halfway down the stairs, without a bruise or scratch, as the drawer bumped down the remaining stairs all the way to the bottom where it crash landed.
I think I almost passed out from relief when I saw that he was just sitting there, perfectly okay, looking up at us with a surprised, but not scared, expression.
Sheesh, kids get killed from climbing drawers and having dressers, or televisions, or other heavy things tip and fall on top of them. You might think your house is safe, but you're not thinking like a toddler!

[Zookeeper]

45. I'm glad he was OK!

It seems like toddlers put themselves at risk just trying to satisfy their curiosity. It's the same for older kids, except then there is the added thrill of sensing that there is some risk involved. (IMHO.)

It's just amazing that more toddlers aren't injured considering the stuff they get into!

:hi:

[zanne]

33. Skating down a sliding hill....

At night. I used to wait until the sliding hill was nice and icy after an ice storm. Then I'd go there after dark so noone could see me. (I was always thinking). I'd lace up my skates at the top of the hill and skate down. (Very, very fast). The last time I did it, I tripped over a hole in the ice. I think my thick,well-padded snowsuit saved my life. I walked away.

[Zookeeper]

46. .....

That sounds really scary. :scared:

The key here is that the accident was the LAST time you did it. (Your mother didn't raise a fool. :+)

[zanne]

57. My mother never knew.

You're right--she didn't raise a fool. She would have killed me.

[havocmom]

34. With in-laws for big family picnic at a park in Phoenix - LOTS of people out in park

I looked up at the sliding board, saw a boy probably 8 or 9 on the ladder, barely holding his bicycle. He was struggling to get the bike up on the slide and muttering, "This is probably one of those things I should know better..."

At that point, I decided I needed something out of the car. Just couldn't watch.

No commotion, no injured kid when I got back.

The mother in me knew kids gotta push the envelope, but just couldn't watch the experiment.

[Zookeeper]

48. That reminds me...

of sitting by one of our neighborhood lakes and watching a couple of boys take a good running start and ride their bikes off the the boat ramp into the lake. Not as dangerous as the stunt you've described, but probably based on the same kind of thinking (or lack of). It did look like a good way to ruin a bike.

:hi:

[Nikia]

36. The neighborhood kids and I road bikes and big wheel tricycles

In the lot by a factory's loading dock. Suprisingly no one got run over by a semi but there were some close calls.
When I was in later elementary school, we used to jump off the top of the monkey bars.

[Zookeeper]

49. I'm surprised that the factory management let....

you kids play in the area! I doubt that would be allowed now, with everyone's concerns about legal liability.

I remember tall, steel monkey bars at my grade school playground. Girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school, so climbing was a fairly exhibitionist behavior. I don't remember anyone jumping off, but I do remember a boy falling off, *face first* into the gravel! That poor kid's face was such a mess and I'm sure he had to endure hours of having gravel picked out of his skin.

Schools don't seem to have monkey bars, anymore. :thumbsup:

:hi:

[OnionPatch]

37. We were about eight or nine when.......

our parents chanced to go away for the day and leave us with our older sister, who promptly left as soon as they were out of sight. This gave us a chance to try something we had been dreaming about doing.....taking all the mattresses off of the beds, piling them up outside under our upstairs bedroom window, and jumping out the (second story) window onto them. :evilgrin: What a blast we had. We even called the local radio station and told them to play "Jumpin' Jack Flash" for us, lol.

The mattresses were back on the beds before anyone got home and no one ever knew the difference, but I sometimes shudder to think what would have happened if we had missed the mattress pile.

[Zookeeper]

51. That really sounds like fun!

And pretty creative. 'Glad everyone was ok, but the "what if" part is scary!

That reminds me of my own dangerous fun activity: I remember finding a cardboard refrigerator box and filling it with autumn leaves and jumping into it from my second story back porch. It was fun until my back found a long stick buried in the middle of the leaves. Fortunately, I only had some pain instead of a punctured spine.

How did we survive childhood?!?

:hi:

[dropkickpa]

40. Rock fight was a fav game

We would line up two groups on each side of the creek and huck rocks at each other. There was the gully jumping on our dirt bikes (when BMX first got really big in the 80's). Various stunts and obstacle courses. We had absolutely no sense of self preservation and usually had a blast.

[Zookeeper]

72. Rock fights....

I'm guessing they didn't often reach their intended target. Ouch!

:hi:

[dropkickpa]

78. We had good aim

I think the distance was the only thing kept the injuries to a minimum (we all have scars from this fun game though). We are all really good at dodging flying objects now!

[Maestro]

41. When I was like 10 or 11

we would play these "fights" in which my buddies and brother would take empty coke bottles and shoot bottle rockets out of them while aiming at our "enemy." I can't tell how many times bottle rockets exploded on my person. Luckily I didn't lose an eye and no one else was hurt.

[Zookeeper]

73. You were lucky....

I'm glad my kids haven't discovered bottle rockets, yet. (It would just be one more thing to fight with them about)

:hi:

[Maestro]

82. I did have a whole pack of what are called "Jumping Jacks"

go off in my hand. It resulted in second degree burns to my fingers. :(

[Maine-ah]

42. "sketchin'"

hanging on to the back bumper of your friend's car, after (or sometimes during) a snowstorm on a road that hadn't been plowed yet, but the snow was packed from people driving on it. I never got hurt, but a friend of mine hit a patch of clear pavement and landed on her face.

[Zookeeper]

74. .....

Anything that involves hanging on to the bumper of a moving car? 'Just say "No."

:hi:

[skygazer]

43. My brother and I used to play King of the Mountain

On the roof.

It was our job to shovel the snow off the pitched roof and we'd shove and tussel and one of us would go ass over teakettle, slide down the roof and tumble off into the snow in the yard. We were pretty good at avoiding the things that might hurt like the clothesline and the fence and the oil tank and any other stuff littered around.

We also used to take big empty cardboard boxes way the hell up the mountain behind our house and slide down in them through the snow. Somehow we managed not to kill ourselves because this was not a bare mountain - it was thick woods with a lot of jumbled rocks.

I also used to climb young trees until they started to bend and then use them to bounce around - you can really get going on a young, supple tree.

When I was a teenager, my friends and I rode horses and a favorite thing to do when everyone was pounding along on a woods trail at a dead gallop was to ride up next to someone else and slip the bridle off their horse's head. Much hilarity would ensue - if you're really quick-witted, you have a shot of using the reins to keep the bit in the mouth but more often then not, the whole thing goes and you either have to ride it out or jump off. :rofl:

[Zookeeper]

75. It sounds like you had a lot of fun....

but, I'd say you're lucky to be here unscathed.

:hi:

[LaurenG]

44. My niece age 2 and 1/2

decided she was going to the store to buy candy without telling anyone. She was dressed in training pants, Bert & Ernie slippers (one was Bert and the other was Ernie) and a dress. She took her money amounting to 4 pennies, a nickel and a dime and went outside and got on her horse; a four wheeled scooting horse with a compartment under the saddle to store "stuff", which is where she put her money.

She was "scooting" out of the drive way when her mom asked her where she thought she was going and she was told "to the store to buy candy". The nearest store was across a busy 4 lane highway also known as highway 54.

It was a frightening thought. Today this child lives and works in DC. She finally got across the street and then some.

[Zookeeper]

64. That is a cute story....

she sounds like she was an adorable baby! I'll bet she's heard that story quite a few times.. :)

:hi:

[HEyHEY]

47. Going down hills standing on my crossbar

As fast as I could.

[Zookeeper]

76. I know you must have fallen off at least once....

Did you ever get hurt?

[SPKrazy]

50. i don't know how we survived!

we rode bikes without helmets :silly:

and we rode them in the gravel pits and made jumps and we'd bust our butts riding our bikes everywhere there.

we even called them "the jumps"

of course we climbed trees, who didn't, made tree houses, floated inner tubes down the canals, hiked in the foothills, rode horses at breakneck speed up steep mountainsides, swam in 50 degree or colder water,

i dunno, the things we did as kids amazingly would frighten people today, but we all did them in my neighborhood.

:shrug:

edit to add

rock fights

bb gun wars

sling shot wars

"hookie bobbing" grabbing the bumpers of cars and sliding on our slickest shoes in the winter when there was snow pack on the roads,

tubing down mountainsides in a pile of people

sledding down college hill and crashing into the hay bales before the street :rofl: they don't allow that there now i hear

but we never wore helmets on bikes

:hi:

[Zookeeper]

65. It sounds like you had a wonderful, fun childhood!

You were lucky to have had access to nature the way you did and even luckier to have survived it.

:hug:

[SPKrazy]

79. ha ha!

that is true!

yes, we lived close to the mountains and in a place that there was not fear of stranger danger much, and certainly our neighborhood is filled with fond memories.

that part of childhood is a happy part no doubt.

later years when we moved, are not so happy.

but it's good to think about all the happy times and remember that in some way they should be able to balance out some things.

:hug:

[tigereye]

52. sledding on glass tv covers that my neighbor's dad had in his store

I think they were safety glass, but still. :scared:

actually tobogganing down a big hill in the local park was pretty scary, too.


And later on, piling 8 teens in a station wagon with not so great brakes.


yup, those were the days. :rofl:

[Zookeeper]

63. Hmmmm. Glass sleds?

It would have been pretty hard on your tush if it had broken. (OWWWW!)

Teenage car stories? There must be a lot of those. I remember a friend of mine showing me how she could do doughnuts on icy roads in an East Side Detroit neighborhood at 11:00 at night. It was fun, but.....

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

53. Just a year or two ago, my good friend tied a desk chair to a bike, and we rode around a while,

went down a few hills too. I still have that scar. . .

[Zookeeper]

61. My youngest son found a desk chair by someone's curb....

last fall and used it to coast down a couple of hills. (No brakes, of course.) :eyes: Good thing we don't get a lot of traffic in our neighborhood.

What did you hit that left a scar?

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

68. Hehe, we went around a curb I think and I fell off and started skidding down the road. My thigh

broke my fall...And then got scraped the fuck up.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

54. I've been a heavy smoker since age 7

[CabalPowered]

55. I broke into an abandoned underground house

It was the coolest attraction for kids for 50 miles. A young architect trained under F.L. Wright built it and then went belly up. The thing was a bit like a castle with trap doors, towers, greenhouse and secret rooms. Well one day we found the secret latch to get inside. And the cops found us 30 minutes later.

:hide:

[Zookeeper]

66. Wow! That sounds like so much fun!

It sounds like the kind of dreams I have regularly.

Is the house still there?

:hi:

[CabalPowered]

70. Unfortunately no

It was razed last year for a McMansion. I know it was on the market for a LONG time. They had an asking price that was sky high for around here. It finally became so worn down from neglect that it would've taken a serious investment to refurbish. The setting was ideal though, it occupied a small valley in a normally flat area with a creek running through it. You couldn't even see it from the road.

:hi:

[Arugula Latte]

56. Me. Spooky horse. Riding alone in the hills. Frequently.

No helmet, of course. :scared:

I would NEVER let my two kids do that.

What the hell were my parents thinking? :wtf:

[Zookeeper]

67. They probably thought it was a healthy outdoor...

activity. Worrying about helmets seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon.

Not so sure about you being off alone, though... :scared:

[BarenakedLady]

59. I was a toddler

and walked off with my cousin who was the same age during a family gathering. They found us on the roof of the house. I guess we climbed up the ladder.

[Zookeeper]

77. I love toddlers....

but, it's like they're on a constant suicide mission!

:hi:

[crispini]

62. When I was a little girl I decided to sample every plant in the backyard.

I'm lucky I didn't poison myself! :rofl:

[Wetzelbill]

69. My dad once jumped off a barn with a sheet that was supposed to be a parachute

Anything I did as a child paled in comparison to the stupidity. And I let him know it too. :)

I jumped off a few haystacks here and there, but nothing all that tall. Not like an effing barn anyway. :)

[MissB]

80. My dad built an electric chair

using a metal chair and an electric fence and then coaxed his sister to sit in it.

My brothers and I never really got into any serious trouble. My own kids seem pretty harmless, though they took it upon themselves to take a 2 mile walk with their friends (no adults) two summers ago. Took awhile for the adults to figure out they weren't at each other's houses.

[Left Is Write]

81. I'd have to say riding my tricycle with my eyes shut....

and then opening them to discover I was across the street has to rank right up there.