Tail Lights

We’ve been trying to take Troy out running / walking in the evenings while the weather is beautiful outside. Troy only seems to know two speeds, full-out sprint and stop. So, he and I spend the entire time running down the sidewalk while my wife walks behind us pushing the stroller.

But Troy gets easily distracted by the lingering Christmas decorations, cars parked in driveways, acorns in the seams of the sidewalks, flags stuck in yards, statues of zen frogs hiding in flowerbeds...well just about everything...you get the idea. So, we stop A LOT. Sprint...stop...sprint...stop...sprint...stop.

One second, Troy will be messing with something in someone’s yard, and the next, he’s running full throttle down the sidewalk. I spend the entire time chasing after him to make sure he doesn’t stray into the street or into someone’s open garage. And then without any warning at all, he’ll just stop to mess with something new that’s he’s spotted.

Sometimes, I’m going so fast to try to catch him that I get too close, and I have no way to stop when he does, so I end up sidestepping around him or leap-frogging over the top of him. He needs a pair of taillights rigged up, so I get some kind of warning that he’s braking. On second thought, I’m not sure that would help either. He’d probably end up looking like a student driver, gunning it and then slamming on the brakes over and over.