Sarge

This is the trampiest picture of Lyla ever taken.

The poor girl is trying her damnedest to crawl. She's to the point where she no longer wants to transport herself by rolling; instead she'll lie on her stomach with a toy in front of her just out of reach, and howl.

I asked my friend Sandy yesterday how on earth she and her husband got their daughter Edy to crawl so proficiently. Edy is practically a spider-monkey and not that much older than Lyla. Sandy replied that one possibility might be how her husband gives Edy lessons from Hard Knocks University: hard core boot camp tough love tummy time. And I thought to myself, I do that too. Kind of. Well maybe not so much.

It makes sense to me intellectually, the idea of training your baby. But I get lazy sometimes and pick Lyla up too quickly when she gets frustrated. And so much of her frustration lately is related to wanting something she can't reach or wanting to be someplace she's not. She's so close now to crawling, so close to taking care of that frustration herself, that next week I'm going to become Sergeant Dad and kick her little booty into gear.

Or I'll wimp out. The kid sort of has me whipped.