We took this "birthday" picture a little late. Colton is actually 11 months and a week (or two) old in this picture. Between the date he turned 11 months and the date of this picture, Colton started crawling. We had to MAKE him crawl. The main motivation was my certain embarrassment if we showed up for the his 1 year old check up and he was not crawling. I have most of the summer off of work, so the whole family decided to start Colton on our very own Crawling Boot Camp. We started by sitting him on a hard surface (to discourage laying down) and teasing him with a very tempting, usually off-limits toy. In his first session, it was a styrofoam cup and straw from Whataburger. He really wanted that straw! He made slow forward progress scooting forward on his bottom. In the end, he preferred to lay down and reach. He actually put a great deal of effort in NOT crawling. He would stretch one arm forward while on his belly and move a little bit while he stretched. Then he would move to the other arm and move a little bit more. It was a bizarre swimming-type movement that to us seemed like a total waste of energy. Joe said, "I have never seen anyone work so hard to not crawl." The next day, we encouraged more scooting (for the Wii remote) with measured success. The real progress happened one evening when Colton finally decided to stop flopping on his belly. The whole family cheered him on as he slowly inched forward using one foot out to the side while sitting on his bottom. When he reached his destination, we all erupted in applause. Startled at first, Colton responded by clapping for himself and screaming. It was so cute. We made him do it several times that first night. He liked our response more than the crawling, though so he stopped a lot to clap for himself even though he hadn't really gone anywhere. So fun!
