ready...set....GO

Will does this thing when we let him walk by himself - whether on a walk, playing at a park, or in a store - where he insists on not holding hands, then will suddenly stop in his tracks when we're not looking at him. He stands there for a minute, waits for us to turn and look at him, then he turns around and bolts the other way, cackling like a little maniac.



As cute as this is, it's becoming an issue because he doesn't stop running when we tell him "stop!" You can understand how this can be a problem if we're in a store, or near a street. Last week I discovered a way to reign in this behavior, by introducing Will to the concept of racing.



When he stops and is about to run off, we can ask him "oh, do you want to race?" Then he'll wait for Erin or I to get into position next to him, assume the "ready" position (as shown in the pictures above). And then after saying "ready...set...GO," the race is on. This at least gets him to run in the same direction that we're heading.

The first day we did this was in the middle of last week, and Will wanted to race over and over. After each race, he would do the sign for "more" and point in the direction he wanted to race next, then immediately assume the "ready" position.

Later, when I tried to get him to show mom how we like to race, he was very uncooperative, so we didn't get a lot of great action pictures. Also he got pretty mad at me when he didn't win the race, as you can see in the video.