Watch out World--Ben is Mobile

Benji is officially on the move! He has started army crawling, and he is getting pretty darn fast. He is incredibly cute about it, of course, because he crosses his little ankles as he begins pulling himself across the floor. He hasn't quite figured out that it might be easier to actually use his legs to propel himself, but he is getting there. :)

Of course, Bizzy and I want to see him crawl as much as possible, but Ben doesn't do it on command or when you want it most, so we have studied his movements, much like Jane Goodall, and we discovered the things that motivate him to move the most....
They are listed in order of importance to Ben and that importance is directly linked to the speed at which he will crawl towards the object:
1. Redford (hyper-speed army crawl with an unflappable determination)
2. Cellphones (very fast crawling with a fixed plan of attack)
3. Cords of any kind (Unrelenting determination here--just when you think he forgot about them....)
4. Shoes/feet, which he immediately puts in his mouth..gross. ( Slow and steady towards these beacons of obvious chewing potential)
5. Anything that is not a baby toy or you don't want him to have (Meandering crawl which soothes you into the delusion that he is just exploring until BAM- he has Red's chew toy in his mouth.)
6. Sanctioned baby toys (Not so much of a crawl here, but he will propel himself a little bit if the toy is super cool; otherwise, he is going to pretend like he no longer has functioning arms or legs and will scream until you place it in his hands)

I wanted to have a super cool video of Benjamin moving to add here, but it seems that the video camera is crawling kryptonite. As soon as I pull it out, Ben goes dead-weight....maybe one day I will have evidence!

Kidding aside, Ben is learning so quickly and becoming such a little man full of personality. I am so thankful that I am able to stay home with him and that I get the opportunity to watch him grow and turn into the absolute coolest boy EVER. No overstatement here. Just the other day, I was lying on the floor with him as he played with a toy and he ended up flipping it over and making a loud noise on the wood floor. He immediately turned to look at me with big eyes and we both started laughing. It was such a small and seemingly insignificant moment, but I know that I could have missed it. So, a big shout-out of thanks to my hubby who is "bringing home the bacon" for this one-income family. His job allows me to stay home with our baby boy, and it also allows him the flexibility to come home around 3:30 most days. We are very lucky indeed.

Here is a photo montage of Red trying to escape Ben's laser-like tracking skills: