Today's Sunshine

I've been working on getting Monster to balance on things for a while, with very little success. The goal is to have him up on an exercise ball - both to give him a workout and because it looks cool of course - but there's no way he'll agree to that without building up to it. So I've been trying different things to use as buildup, but with the aforementioned lack of success. Most things aren't big enough for him to voluntarily step up with all four feet at the same time, and those that are (like a table, my baby's not small) are far too sturdy to easily transfer the experience to a ball later.

However, today I took a back cushion from the sofa, don't know why I didn't think about that before. He wouldn't really stand on that either, instead laying down on it with half his body hanging out, but once I became even smarter and picked a seat cushion instead we started getting somewhere. Unfortunately we ran out of treats before we could get any further, but at least now I know I've found an angle to work from. Once he'll solidly step up and move around on the seat cushion, I'll add another. And then another. The pile will be unstable and bouncy, not unlike the ball - although it won't roll around, fortunately. Once he feels comfortable with that it may be time to try moving over to the ball. At this pace it may take a year or so, though. Monster is... not participating in training lately.

Why should I? It's stupid. You're stupid. Turn on the TV!

Bloody teenagers...