Baby Incentive

All of us are enjoying having hard floors except for poor baby Samuel. He does not like to crawl on them and will keep himself positioned just so on the edge of a blanket or the gym mat so that no part of him has to touch the cold, hard floor. He won't crawl on it, so his area to move around is pretty small. Because of this, he doesn't really even TRY to crawl and then of course their is the sibling factor...why move when you have 3 little people bringing you everything to play with your heart could desire?
But we recently discovered there is one thing that Samuel WILL move for...or to GET to rather. He LOVES the MacBook. (smart boy)  :)
So I decide to do an experiment and see if we gave Samuel some 'baby incentive' if he would try to start moving. I wasn't going to make him crawl on the hard floor though, that doesn't feel good on baby knees, so I put his blanket on the ground. At the other end of it I placed the forbidden computer...the kids are not suppose to touch the computer in our house unless they have permission to be on it and Mom or Dad sets it up for them to play a game, type, etc.  So Samuel instantly had an audience because they all wanted to see if I'd actually let him play with it! LOL!
It took him a minute to get going. He kept looking at me, then at the computer and you could see him thinking about weather it was worth it to try to get to it or not!

He was SO happy that I didn't take it away...

And that I even let him touch it.  :)

Then I did something really mean and I moved it to the other side of the blanket and made him do it again.

He moved MUCH quicker this time!

I've never seen him go so fast! It was nice to see that he actually CAN crawl, he just chooses not to because apparently there isn't anything interesting enough laying around to motivate him to move. Hmm....I think he has a bit of his Uncle Stephen's personality.  :) LOL! (for those of you who know Stephen)

And then I was really mean and moved it again. This was his reaction...

He was not very happy with me. And after seeing him look so crushed, I couldn't move it again. So I somehow convinced him to crawl to it again and this time I let him play and push the keys for a few minutes. Though I don't think he expected to actually get it this time. He moved a little slower, communicating to me that he didn't trust me...maybe this isn't a good game to play with him! What am I teaching my children?!

He was very excited when I didn't take it away this time and enjoyed banging on the keys for awhile. He eventually lost interest when his cheering section dispersed and went on to play other things...such an Adams!