Walk to the Stream

About ¼ mile from our home is a stream that meanders through backyards and emerges at a turn in the road. In an attempt to get Clark and Phil to exercise more we require that they walk to the stream and back. The requirement used to be Monday through Friday but when Phil became employed his dropped to two days a week since he walked more than a half mile to his bus stop and back three days a week but Clark was still to walk to the stream and back five days a week. They never walk together. Phil wants the job done quickly; Clark would rather stroll. Clark has also decided that he would rather walk 1 ½ miles with me than walk ½ mile alone. A week ago I told Clark I would walk to the stream and back with him since I had already been out earlier. Part way there I picked up my pace in an attempt to get Clark to walk faster. Suddenly I heard Clark hit the pavement as his head brushed the back of my leg. I helped him to his feet. One hand and one knee were scraped but only slightly. While brushing off his sweats he said “That was not very fun.” and continued to say it over and over as he held firmly onto my hand. “I’ve fallen too and it isn’t very much fun.” I said in an effort to get the focus off his fall. “What happened?” he asked. I explained that there are uneven places on the sidewalk and his toe hit one of them. “I know who did it; It was some boys.” he said, trying to place the blame on someone else. This scenario was sounding familiar—the fall, murmuring about the pain, blaming others, the clasping of an extended hand to help us not do that again. By the time we reached home Clark was saying “I don’t want to fall again.”