BORN: October 24, 1964 - Saturday - ? p.m.
Leominster Hospital
Leominster, Massachusetts USA
7 lbs. 14 oz. - 20 inches long
Induced labor. Head first.

There was no morning sickness at all for this baby - it was quite a relief! And, there was no anemia, so I knew he was a boy. The name Andrew was picked, after the Apostle Andrew in the Bible; James after St. James and Joe's brother Jimmy.

Andrew was born with blond hair, with a slight touch of red in it. It was quite long, and very thick.

He had two attacks of asthma when he was very young; the first was at 6 weeks, and then one later on. Outside of these, he was always very healthy.

When he was just a few weeks old, he was constipated (which isn't typically Girouard); he hadn't gone at all for a few days and was very crabby about it. Doctor stopped over the house, on his way to the hospital (we were on his "flight path"). I had just given Andrew his morning bath and he was tightly wrapped in his receiving blanket...I did all this on the kitchen table (as usual). Doctor began to squeeze Andrew's stomach, to see if there was a blockage in the intestine. He really squeezed away...and Andrew just slept on and on and on: he was always a very sound sleeper. End of that story, was after a few servings of strained prunes.

Andrew was always very close to his baby sister, Lisa; he was always looking out for her and keeping her out of trouble - still does, to this day!

His nickname was "Skunk", because we gave him a black and white panda bear (stuffed) every Christmas, until one year we couldn't find one and he ended up getting a skunk instead. From then on, he always got a stuffed skunk. Years later, when we lived on the farm, in Canada - I took some black and some white rabbit skins and made him a "Daniel Boone" hat that looked like a skunk, with the white stripe down the middle. It eventually shed all its hair.

When we were still in the States. he liked to climb tall trees. He got up about 30 feet in a maple tree we had in the back yard. Then he fell down, barely missing a bike that was at the bottom; he seemed okay. But, a few days later he went and did the same thing...landing on a rock and he needed stitches on the back of his head. He had the stitches removed, on our way to Canada, by the nurse who was travelling with us.

We were looking into edible wilds...mushrooms being the first we tried. Andrew had been walking around in the woods just below our house - he found a huge mushroom, growing at base of a tree. He put it in two, plastic grocery bags (it was HUGE), and he brought it home. We called someone we knew, who ate wild mushrooms and they told us how to tell if it was edible or not. "You boil it in water, with a dime at the bottom of the pot. If the time tarnishes, it isn't edible." So, that's what we did. It was okay. Then, we cut it up, fried it and ate it (in two different meals). It's a wonder we were okay...because that's not how you tell if they are good to eat.

When we lived in the town of Fort St. John (1977), Andrew was playing hide and seek in the little house we rented; he hid under one of the homemade beds and got scraped by a nail. It soon got infected and tiny, red spots began to appear all over his body; doctor said it was a staff germ and he was put on a very strong medicine to kill it. The doctor said he might sleep alot, because he had so much infection; but, he didn't...he was 'rugged'.

He had all childhood diseases or the shot to protect from them - including mumps shot.