What is Gilbert Doing?

The past week has been consumed dealing with the fallout from Kristen's accident. Update. Kristen drives to work, slides on black ice, hits guardrail, air bags deployed, car totalled, new car purchase. Back to normal.

The week has been eventful for Gilbert as well. He's flirting with the idea of walking. Step 1...learn how to stand up unassisted. The past week we'll be playing and all of a sudden there is Gilbert standing by himself. Then he'll realize what he's doing and the knees buckle and down he goes! Priceless to see the look on his face, "Oh s***, I'm standing up. What am I thinking?"


And talk about being aware of one's surroundings! Now, every time he hears the 'L' or a Metra train, he turns to the window, points at it, and makes a sound, a noise, or some inaudible vocal and continues to do so until either Kristen or I respond by saying, "Train". At that point, the balance in the universe has been restored and Gilbert goes back to doing whatever he was doing before the train noise was heard. Funny, huh? 20-30 times a day. How funny is that?

Then there is his progression with talking. He has had 'mama' down for a long time now. What he does is over accentuate some of his word-sounds. Check this out.



What else? Oh yeah, Gilbert is enjoys dumping everything out of his crib. Yep. Especially during daytime napping. First to go is the animal zoo. The stuffed animals are easy to throw out with one hand. There is the frog. The gorilla. The monkey. And sometimes the occasional dinosaur. Next up a small pillow from Kristen's aunt Janet.

What remains? His blanket. A bit more difficult to extract. Gilbert will stand up and with one hand hold the rail and then lean back to the crib to grab the blanket. He'll attempt to throw it and then when that doesn't happen, still hanging by one hand, use the other to pull and throw, pull and throw. Repeat until the blanket has been expelled. Not sure why he begun to do it, his intentions were quickly revealed. With a clean dance floor, Gilbert grabs with both hands the top rail and proceeds to dance by bending his knees. His 'slow dance' picks up and he gets into the groove without any objects to interfere. Especially when he gets really excited and decides to jump. Yes, jump. Definitely clearance between his feet and the mattress. And to hear him squeal with delight. I have to to find a way to get that captured on film!