Oscar the Pest

William is napping. This is not an everyday thing anymore and rarely goes off without a long, drawn-out struggle when it does happen, so I am really enjoying this moment of peace. Anna started grumbling at 11:30, so, when feeding her left her still grumbly, I stuck her in her play pen wrapped in warm blankets and she’s been sleeping off and on ever since. William and I ate lunch together and played. We built his Wee Waffle Village set that I got at Goodwill. He brought the box to me and told me he NEEDED it. I decided it looked like fun and for $4.99 it didn’t even matter if some of the pieces were missing from the taped-up original box. Most of them were in there (all but some of the people and farm animals and the tractor) and we’ve had a ton of fun playing with it.
After playing with it for a bit, we went to William’s bed to read the latest library books. He dragged the library book bag to his room – it was too heavy for him to lift with six hard-cover kid’s books inside. We read three of them and then he let me cover him up. He has been whining for me and banging his stuffed animals on the wall so that their hard eyes make clicking noises, but he isn’t very loud yet, so I’ll give him a chance to fall asleep.


Oscar has gone through some sort of metamorphosis. After nearly 5 years with me, his personality has completely changed. Up until our trip to Utah for Thanksgiving, he was a solitary thing, rarely out of his cage and hardly interested in anything aside from his own reflection. Suddenly, he’s become…well, like all the other birds we’ve had growing up. I thought at first that perhaps he was starving to death. Usually, hunger drives him out of his cage to do desperate fly-by’s at our heads until we refill his feed dish. When his frequent sorties continued after I had refilled the food, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the latest bag of seed. I bought some new, more expensive seed, but his friendliness only increases every day. We’ve actually had to resort to closing his cage door to get him to leave us alone. William sought me out the other day when I had left him watching a video and eating a baggie of snacks on the sofa. Oscar wouldn’t leave him alone. Oscar had never willingly gone near William before! Oscar landed on Kip’s shoulder and returned several times after Kip waved him off. He sits frequently on my shoulder now and spent the last 30 minutes climbing all over this computer table to see what everything was. He is suddenly curious about everything and has no fear. Yesterday, he even jumped on a baking tray I had just pulled out of the oven and must have burned his little birdie feet. I don’t know what caused the change, but we’re enjoying it. William, who can’t say the letter ‘s’ yet, frequently asks to see O-car and enjoys having the bird stand on his hand. Or he yells at O-car to get off the kitchen table, the main place where he’s not allowed to be but frequently ends up. It’s a dramatic change, but it’s fun to show Kip what birds can be like and why I thought it would be fun to have one.