If possible, Amelia takes her bird everywhere with her.  He attaches himself to her shoulder and hangs on for the ride with his busy little mistress.  She practices piano, puts away laundry, watches t.v., runs outside, and all the other things her busy day holds.  BamBam nestles into Amelia’s shoulder and sometimes has to close his eyes since her hair hangs down in his face.  The two of them are quite a pair.

Just a few moments ago, as we were finishing up cleaning the garage, and after Amelia and Miguel finished sweeping up little piles of dust off the garage floor (with BamBam hanging on the whole time), Laura called out to me, “Look at Amelia!  Look where BamBam is!”  I glanced over, expecting to see the bird on Amelia’s shoulder, but instead saw Amelia riding her bike with her bird on the front bar.  He was sailing along, seemingly enjoying the ride, and she was proudly pedaling around like his taxi driver.  I hurried inside for my camera and got several shots of the moment.  I suppose I should restrict such activities, but if somehow there is an accident and BamBam perishes, we will all rest assured that he died a happy and loved bird with no shortage of interesting things to do in his day.

Last night we drove to Mahomet, IL, to visit the Wings of Wonder Avian Rescue again. This time we were on a search to find a new friend for Laura, and also to visit the bird that is supposed to be waiting for Luke.

I thought for sure that Laura would take the chance to lobby for a larger bird, but I was pleased that she ended up deciding on a perky male cinnamon cockatiel. I think he’ll be a good fit for her.

Luke liked the looks of the yellow budgie that he’s been waiting for, but the little thing was quite wild and Luke couldn’t get him to act friendly at all. I had warned Luke that the bird wouldn’t be tame and he’d need to work on that, but it was still discouraging for Luke to think of a bird that didn’t want his attention.

While Laura was looking at the various cockatiels, a certain gray male settled on Luke and stayed very quietly on Luke’s chest for a very long time. Luke’s heart melted, and all thoughts of a wild yellow budgie were forgotten. Luke decided he would much rather have this bird who seemed to love him already and trust him and would enjoy being held.

So, with birds picked out and with promises that they would be delivered to Bloomington one day this week, we loaded up and headed home. On the way, I decided that maybe Luke would like some help brainstorming about names for his bird. So as we were driving I offered, “Luke, would you like me to help you think of some name ideas for your bird?” I was so surprised when he answered rather matter-of-factly, “I already have a name picked out.” I couldn’t wait to hear what Luke had decided! What an amazing thing!

“What is it, Luke?”

“The name he came with,” was his reply.

I choked back my laughter, and nodded. “That is a nice name. Isn’t his name Toby?”

I had to just shake my head, with a smile on my face, at Luke’s decision to avoid all hard decisions and agonizing debates by just keeping the name the bird already has.

One final tidbit for today:

This morning, overheard at breakfast, was Amelia’s comment to Isaac, “You can PICK your nose, and you can PICK your friend’s nose… but you can’t pick your BIRD’S nose!”

Isaac replied, “I don’t get it.”

Amelia answered, “I can’t even get my finger in there!”

Isaac said, “I still don’t get it.”

This morning I’m drinking my coffee and wondering what the day holds. I guess there’s only one way to find out. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael came home over lunch to pick us up and take the whole gang of us to the dentist. I dread these dentist visits because I usually get lectured about my children’s poor brushing habits. It’s one of those things that I intend to do better at reminding kids about, but it just doesn’t happen at all like it should.

Amazingly, despite my trepidation, the dentist visit went very well, and we escaped with only one kid needing a filling. Read the rest of this entry »

After thinking all day about the sad end to Tangle this morning, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two lessons to learn from the experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few moments ago, Laura’s bird, Tangle, suddenly started thrashing around and fell to the floor and died.  We have no idea what happened.  I had my back to him so didn’t see if he got caught on something or what.  The other kids were downstairs, and Laura was in the bathroom, so there were no witnesses.

Of course, Laura is devastated and I don’t know what to do for her.  Getting another bird for her seems like a logical thing to do, but the new bird wouldn’t be Tangle.

What a sad way to start our day.

One of the small technicalities we had to solve with the acquisition of birds is a supply of newspapers to line the bottom of the cages. We don’t get a daily paper, and I was reluctant to buy papers to use as poop catchers.

Much to my delight, it turns out that Michael has a co-worker who gets the daily paper and brings it into work every day. Read the rest of this entry »

According to what I’ve read, birds are great imitators and love to do what you do and eat what you eat. So one way to encourage them to eat healthy food is to let them see what you eat, and maybe even eat some of it. Since I don’t want to feed bird pellets or mealworms to my children, I’ve decided that an equally healthy option is for the birds to sample some of the lentil enchiladas the children were served for supper tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

At long last, here are some photos of the birds in the house. My camera finally surfaced, so now we get to experiment with capturing birds on film… or with pixels, or however they’re captured these days.

Even though I’ve never kept birds before (other than chickens years ago), these creatures have captured my attention. They are fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight we held our second annual glow-in-the-dark autumn birthday party. We stretched the birthday dates all the way back to July since we hadn’t celebrated any of them, and besides, it was a good excuse to have more fun. Read the rest of this entry »