Babysitting This Week

Normally, I do not like the term 'babysitting' because I do not sit on babies. Not to mention, during the toddler stage, one does not sit much! But, I can't say that I am doing childcare again, since I'm not. Although, this week has made me realize that I really miss it. I am good with kids. No, I take that back...I am AWESOME with kids! I think I will put an ad back up on care.com and advertise to watch a few older kids. No babies. My life is too hectic to watch wee ones. Plus, I can still write while the older kids are at school or busy with projects and such.

And, since no post is complete without pictures... the birds had to get in on the act as well.
 

Kiwi wanted to play Polly Pockets, too!

Baby tried to disguise herself as a Gusher! Didn't work!

A challenge

I love challenges! Especially the ones that have to deal with behavior in my children and in my birds. Today's challenge is to keep my lovebirds off the floor! My blue masked lovebird is finding that underneath my hutch in my kitchen is a neat place to hide. I've gotten some really good advice. The only thing is, he sneaks underneath there. He won't go under while we are watching him. He looks around to make sure no one is watching, but then if he even thinks we're going to be watching, he waits until we are busy. Even if we peek around the corner, he knows we're still watching!

So, I need to find a safe place for him to play that is out of the way. Just putting up a hideaway to make as his new clubhouse isn't going to work. He'll want it to be hidden... And, to make this challenge even harder; he is clipped but regaining some of his flight feathers. Even though, it is still hard for him to get to where he wants to go.

Where to put this hidey-hole? Nothing like rearranging your house for birds!! My house has gone to the birds LOL At least they let me have my favorite chair, the TV, and my coffee. I'm happy.

Someone slap me

Or at least block Craigslist from my computer, please. I see these posts about birds being locked in cages all day long, every day and then people advertising them on CL saying they are mean birds :o( I'd be mean, too if someone locked me up all day, every day.

Think about it... You wake in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen that day. Another day of being neglected. Another day of sitting staring out into space. Another day of eating the same nasty food. Not having anything to do, no one to talk to... Pretty soon you'd be wishing NOT to wake up in the morning :o(

I feel so sorry for these beautiful creatures and want to make life better for them. They did not ask for you to purchase them and they certainly did not ask for you to stick them in a cage. A bird, a majestic creature that was made to fly not be locked up in a cage!!

Enough ranting. The point to my little speech was that we are getting a new family member! A little girl, peach faced lovebird! Who ironically enough, looks like my Peanut.

Can I seriously block CL from my computer?

Routine

A routine is what I need. Hubby has the cutest routine for the Suns. Each morning, before he gets them up, he has all their food ready. He has a certain amount of walnuts and pistacchios that he gives each and a certain amount of cereal pieces sitting on the counter ready for them. Spoiled birds get cereal while my guys get yucky veggies and pasta! LOL

Back to hubby; He goes and gets the Suns from the bird room, hurriedly brings them into the living room so that Gibby can go potty. Gibby will not potty in his night time cage either.

Then it is kisses from daddy, (I stay away, I do not want a lip piercing), and cereal pieces. Once they've each had a piece of cereal, he puts in their food bowl and puts the rest of the cereal pieces in their treat bowl.

Not to worry, their cereal is organic good for you shredded wheat stuff that is expensive but since it is for the birds.... Not to mention it is not being sold in any of our local stores anymore. Hubby buys it when he takes our daughter grocery shopping when he takes her back to college in a neighboring city.

In the meantime, I am either eating my breakfast or doing some housework when Peanut gets up. We have no special morning routine... We have our special evening routine, but that isn't enough...

Our morning routine is Peanut flying to my head, climbing down on to my shoulder, and gacking for whatever body part he can find. If there are no body parts, he gacks on my shirt... :o( See, hormones.

So, yes a better routine is what I need...

Still dismal

My mother asked me yesterday, how on earth I can handle all that I have had to deal with lately. I told her that I can't. I said that the downstairs is a wreck because I have been cooking supper and then heading into the bird room to stay. I have not done any housework down there in a week. Why? Because as soon as I do something down there...it is wrecked. So why bother. I am so fed up with it and I am about to explode.

I told my mother that if I don't soon get out of here and do something for me, I will explode. Needless to say, I am still here. She, on the other hand, left for the morning and then left for the day at 1:30 for me to deal with all the daycare kids. Thanks mom! I am here from 6:45 AM until 5:30 PM, I do not get a break nor do I get to leave early. When 5:30 rolls around, I want out of that room and I want to spend some time with my fids.

No, I do not say anything to my mom because I do not want to hurt her. It is my people pleasing complex coming into play. I love my mom dearly and most days it is really cool to have her here. She would do anything for me and is always there for me. I wasn't the best of teenagers and so I feel that I owe her a lot because of the way I acted. I was a snot! LOL

Anyway, hubby asked me at 8:00 this morning, if we were to go out tonight, what would we do with the birds? See. It has been ages since we did anything for ourselves and that is not good! Not sure if he was serious since he went to bed after 6AM this morning or what...As much as I like to stay here and snuggle my baby Peanut (my lovebird!!!), I need a break. I need to have some fun! I need time for myself. My whole entire day is built around doing things for other people, taking care of other people and I do not do anything for me.

My family says that I do my housework for me and not for them since no one asked me to do anything. Oooookaaaayyyy. If I didn't do any cleaning at all, wouldn't social services come to visit? Wouldn't someone complain? Wouldn't the health department come? So, unless they want to be in foster care (OK, not the 21 YO and the 19YO, but the 14 YO would get taken away) or in quarantine for some nasty disease, then no, I do not do housework just for me.

On to a more pleasant topic...I just watched the most amazing thing. Baby Joey taking his first bath!!!!!! (shoosh!! it was amazing to me :P~~~~~~~~~~~~) He was rolling all around and really enjoying it! So funny!!!!

Maile is doing well. She is still just as nasty, but is coming out more and more. However, she scurries right back in when something scares her. I don't know whether or not to take out her hut... It is dirty and I would love to get it cleaned. I would also love to get her a smaller one, but I'm not sure if that would make her worse or not...

I think 2 of my budgies are going to be parents soon! Koda is constantly by Melody's side and feeds her. So sweet! I don't know if I'm ready to be a grandma yet or not LOL But, if nature takes its course, who am to intervene??? LOL

Baby Joey is doing awesome, as well. He loves people and having attention paid to him. We cut his toenails the other day...boy was that an experience because his one foot is handicapped so getting him to uncurl it was really hard!

And, last but not least, Peanut got a wing clip :o( He was being too much of a daredevil when out of the birdroom. So for his safety, it needed to be done.

Til next time....

She has a name!!

She finally has a name. After searching the internet for all kinds of names, I finally found one that suits her. Her name is Maile, pronounced MY-lee. It is an Hawaiian plant that they sometimes uses the leaves to make lei's. It is green in color and usually flowers between fall-winter and the flower has a faint vanilla scent. I love the smell of vanilla and she came to us in the early fall. Perfect!

She is ummm, settling in nicely. However, when we get to close to her cage she scurries into her hut and just waits for us to get close so she can charge. I can understand...she is protecting her nest. But, once she gets more use to us we can let her out to fly and play and she won't be as cage aggressive as she is now.

However, I think she bit one of my budgies toes :o( It is all black and blue and a little swollen. I need to catch him and put some antibiotic cream on it but I don't want to stress him out which catching him will surely do to him. Poor baby.

I have not had a chance to play with my dolls lately. Been very busy. And since it is the last unofficial day of summer, everyone is putting yard sales out. We hit one huge one today and that was all I could manage. My back hurt so badly that I could have puked. Sorry.

The only thing I bought was 2 doilies for my dining room table, some cable ties (which I ended up paying the wrong person for so I paid for them twice LOL)...hmmmm....I took a $20 bill, and came home with only $5 but for the life of me I can not remember what else I bought. Oh well.

New baby

We have a brand new baby girl!! No name yet, but she is a fiesty and noisy one. She is a Seagreen Peach Faced Lovebird. So that makes the bird count up to 11...uhoh, an odd number! I do not like odd numbers!! But, it will have to do for now because our house is full. There is no more room for another member of this family unless I start invading children's rooms which I am sure they would not like...at all!

Peanut is happy to have a friend. He had to fly to her cage as soon as we opened the door. It was weird because he did his scaredy chirp first, then after he heard her, he flew right to her cage! He didn't stay scared for long.

We need names!! I can not think of any. Her original name was Evil and there is no way that I am keeping that!