Need some Parenting tips/help

My son is 17 months old 36-38lbs and 35inches tall. He is a perfectly healthy baby boy but doesn’t want to walk in front of me. When I catch him doing it he throws himself to the ground and crawls around everywhere super fast. This has been going on for a couple months now. He finds it funny like it’s a game. I have tried everything to encourage him to walk on his own whether I’m looking at him or not. Now he pulls himself up on stuff and will walk around holding on to things for balance like a pro. It’s not that he isn’t doing anything involved with walking. He’s just being a turd lol What are some tips I can do to help him gain the confidence to stay standing and walk more than 3-4 steps with me looking? He gets too excited and tries to run as well but that never works out for him. He ends up getting top heavy and falls over. He is just trying to skip the waddling part and go straight to running. Idk. Also how do you get your kid to stop calling you “Bob!” Instead of Mom? Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated for this exhausted mama.