andrew's site...from the early beginnings -- growth

Name
andrew thomas gilbert

Alias
mister drew, andrew boy

Address
provo, utah

Date of birth
january 23, 2001

Hospital
timpanogos regional hospital, orem, utah

Measurements at birth

8.6 pounds and 20 and a half inches
Copyright
� pictures are copyrighted. all rights reserved.

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 8

month 11 through month 14

even though there has been no updates on andrew's web site in the last three months, there should have been plenty, because so much has happened in the growth of our little friend. If you can remember, we had discussed previously that andrew was doing some progress in his walker at the end of last november. he like being in his walker, but yet, was getting frustrated with going forward... indeed, andrew could only go backward. this was something peculiar with andrew. even when he scooted, he didn't seem to understand the "going forward" aspect of locomotion. Well, toward the beginning of december, the boy did start to understand this principle and was going everywhere (in his walker). these new changes happened quickly and some incidents happened. one of them was on a sunday morning, when i had left the iron on the ironing board. the thing was plugged in of course, and streaming hot. i went into andrew's bedroom to talk with tara, and to my surprise, when i came back in the hall where the iron was, i saw andrew in his walker going around the iron that had fallen right next to him. he had gone through the hall pulling the iron off the board by the cord that was connected in the wall. happily, nothing happened to him. we then realized that we didn't have complete freedom around the house anymore. we promised to keep an eye on the boy at all time. There was left, in the carpet, the imprint the the iron. we are grateful that nothing happened to him that day, and of course, got aroung to replace the carpet. going forward in the walker, we believe, was a trigger to standing up against the walls, since he also, at about the same time, started to scoot forward. This led to crawling (beginning of december)! crawling and standing up against the walls was andrew's new favorite thing. he quickly got around understanding that furniture could be a great help with his bipedal locomotion. indeed, he spun probably 10000 time around the coffee table before giving us the first signs of letting go of the table and starting to walk on his own. then practice began, right after christmas, between mommy and daddy, 1 step at a time, then 2 steps and three steps. andrew was loving it. he got very good at it real quick and in less than a week, he was on his own, up and down, up and down again. lucklily, andrew had stored important cellulite in his lower back and the cushy layers helped him during every fall. as the new year came around, he was more than officially walking on his own and performing the little disasters of new toddlers. as of today (april 7th), andrew has also discovered the outside world. he loves to go play outside and has absolutely no fear. if we let him go, he will be gone! he has this toy that resemble a little shopping cart that he can push and will go around the world if we do not stop him. he enjoys playing with his little neighbor friend and whosoever is around. the five pictures presented for this update represent some of our best moments with him for the last few months.