If he can sit, he can do chores

We have been training Spud to sit. I managed to train my dog to sit when I was a kid, but training a human is apparently a little bit different. For one thing, there is no leash to yank on when he gets it wrong. It has been a process of trial and error for both the baby and for us. The objective is to prop him up in a gravitationally stable sitting position and then....let go! At first he would just comically flop over almost immediately. I almost always caught him. In the past week, he's shown remarkable improvement, and managed to hold the position for up to several seconds before going down. The problem, as I see it, is that he doesn't see the point. Why sit up? What's the payoff? Food and toys are easily accessible from a supine position.

He has put much more effort into crawling but has achieved even fewer positive results. He can get into the correct crawling position, but then doesn't know what to do next. If he lifts a hand, he rolls over and tumbles face-first into the carpet. If he lifts a leg, the result is a complex roll-pitch-yaw maneuver and another ugly face-first landing. The mechanics are quite complicated when you stop and think about it. He gets pissed, but he perseveres.

But today he nailed sitting. The photo:



And the video (featuring Claire sounding far too business-like and me using my "fun Daddy" voice which sounds like a cross between Barney the lovable TV dinosaur and Barney Frank the not-as-lovable senator from Massachusetts):