Our Newwest Addition

As of two months ago, we had no pets. It was Todd, me, Mikey, Roger, and William in the house. Since then we have gotten a fish and a dog. Now, I don't know what we were thinking, we have a bird. It's Mikey's bird. It's a robin, brown with a red tummy. He's quite low maintenance. I don't have to feed him, or give him water. I occasionally have to clean him up, but it's really not that bad. The good news is that he can provide instant quiet time. When he's in his cage "sleeping" Mikey enforces that everyone be quiet so not to disturb his sleeping bird. Now if he would only do that when William was sleeping. Mikey named his bird Pippen, after his primary teacher, Sister Winegar's, bird Pippen. Here's a picture of his bird:

In his primary class they had a lesson about birds. Immediately Mikey pulled his little bird out and has been obsessed with it. He asked me to get him a cage for his bird, "so mine bird don't fly away. If he fly away we got to get an airplane and catch him with a fishing pole." We didn't want to have to do that, so I made him a cage.

Whenever the bird is in his cage, he's sleeping. I had told his primary teacher, who is also a good friend, about Mikey's sudden love of his bird. When she came to his birthday party, she brought her bird. This was such a treat for Mikey. He was able to see how real live birds behave. Through seeing this bird, Mikey learned that he could have his bird sit on his finger, bite his finger, feed the bird, and his favorite - have the bird sit on his shoulder.

It is a lot of fun watching Mikey be so tender to his bird. It's also so much fun to see him adoring his teacher so much. I know when I was his age I thought my teacher was so wonderful, and he definitely thinks that about his teacher.