Breakthrough!

After about a week of working on his sitting up with Momma on stable, flat surfaces, Besnik decided to save his major SIT for Daddy on the cushiony bed. While Momma was out of the room getting ready for bed, he and Daddy were talking to Besnik's Octopus friend -- naturally, Besnik desired to be in the upright position in order to be on equal footing with the 8-tentacled fellow.

In the first two pictures below, he is using Nick as to prop himself up while using his left hand for balancing on the bed. Earlier that day he had discovered that the left hand was good for this...

Then, Nick put him in the center of the bed and light dawned on marble head -- there are two hands here! It was truly like Besnik had a realization -- you could see it in his eyes -- that if he used both arms he could really balance! And so he did, again and again. We didn't get any photo documentation of the first real sit that night because Molly had already run scared out of the room (elderly beagle photo-phobia) and then been coerced back in.

However, in true Scientific Method fashion, we tested the sitting again the next day and found statistically significant replicability and generalizability! Here you can see Besnik sitting up on his blanket in the living room. (Please disregard the lack of child-proofing in this shot -- we figure there are still a couple months before we need to worry about scissors at baby height.)

And, finally, here Besnik takes both hands off the ground and balances without any arms!

Besnik has now sat up unassisted in a variety of locations: cushiony bed, various floors, parents' laps, slanted futon, and a Wild by Nature shopping cart (particularly pleasing for the Man -- his small stature combined with his sharp stare-downs took quite a few people by surprise).