17 Months

Doing the milestones has been more of a chore than a pleasure so I'm done. I guess thats the end of an era, when you no longer pour over your baby's milestones! I haven't touched a parenting book of any sort in a year.

Whats new... well he has regressed a bit on the speech. Okay, he doesn't say much at all anymore. I feel like this will go by way of the walking- one day, he will simply start babbling and making sense and we will all be amazed for a week then forget and move on to the next Big Thing. I'm not worried about him at all, I just feel blessed to have such a healthy, happy awesome baby. He has been such a bundle of fun lately.

I'll admit here to being Crappy Mama and say Klaus watches more TV than we do. I've been trying to cut down on it the last few weeks, which makes him cranky of course. Its like a stupid drug. If it was actually teaching him anything relevant I would have less of an issue with it, but it's not. I mean the signing video yeah but you know he doesn't want to watch that he wants to watch Spongebob.

Mommy fail.

I am headed back to work this week, Klaus will stay with Jim hopefully (who is recovering fine from his surgery, more of that in my non-Klaus blog). I am excited, especially since one of my best friends works there now, plus being surrounded by likeminded mamas.. you know. It's all good for me.

We are talking about transitioning Klaus into a different bed for the beginning of the night. I'm ready for some time sleeping in a comfortable position but I don't think either of us are ready to give up cosleeping entirely. I know Jim and I are going to need to do some sort of weekend trip or something over a weekend, and have friends who we are comfortable leaving Klaus with, but I do want it to be easier on the sitters themselves so we are preparing.

Other than that, more of the same. Still working on those pictures! And will for the rest of my life LOL

A non-Klaus post...Cookie!

Cookie is coming back home to Arizona to live out his days with Jim and I.
We bought Cookie as a rescue from a store that was closing. I had Cricket, a parrotlet that I was very attached to. He was our baby. Cookie was not handfed and was very skittish when we got him.He lived with me in my room when I lived with Dana... I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to rehome him or keep him. When Jim and I decided to move to Arizona, we figured we would make the decision there.

Cookie named himself. We took too long I guess. Organic animal crackers (or rather, the legs of them LOL thas a biiiiig cookie for a little bird) were his favorite treat and he learned to ask for them by name.

Simon, Oreo, Cookie, and Cricket were crammed into my orange Beetle on the trip down. Cricket unfortunately died of unknown causes (we were mid drive and had to send his body back to my mom to be buried on the farm) and I was depressed over it for a long while when we first moved here. It still upsets me to see blue parrotlets but you know, Klaus doesnt let me think about it too much ;) I resented Cookie for being the surviving bird and gave up on having him bond to me, so he bonded to Jim. I still thought of him as a rescue bird. Jim spent a lot of time in the Bird Room with her. We had a few more rescues and kept it small, then when I got pregnant I placed them in their forever homes. Cookie took a while longer. I felt he would be a great breeding bird and I found a local green cheek conure breeder and gave him to her. We would get a baby of his that was handfed and would be more pet-ish after my baby was older.

I guess I didn't realize how much we would miss him. (We thought he was female until the breeder had him DNA sexed) Jim sulked over it for a very long time, kept pictures and videos of him on his phone, etc. but I was able to emotionally distance myself because I had a baby to look forward to and thought I may never want another bird again after the death of Cricket.

I guess the feathered part of you never dies. A few weeks ago (or actually June LOL) we were talking about getting a bird. The breeder had told us she sold Cookie to someone else and we were upset and didn't know where he was. I decided that one of the birds Id like to have "for life" would be a green cheek and likely an Amazon. We were just in the bird store the other day talking about Cookie and how much we missed a little green cheek in our lives.

Earlier today I was browsing websites looking at different Amazons, and I saw a little thumbnail picture that lept out at me. Just a tiny thumbnail. Like I said, Cookie was a VERY good looking bird, some green cheeks have little substance and look spooked all the time whereas Cookie had perfect bulk and a nice flat planed head. The description listed the bird as "Cookie- breeder male" and went on to say he talked and danced. I interrupted what Jim was saying to read him the ad. I didn't think it was him at first, just coincidence.. but that picture.

We brought up the website and compared pictures of Cookie to Cookie. We called the current owner and left a message asking for them to call us back, that we thought her Cookie was our Cookie. She was located in Indiana. I sent a message to the breeder I gave Cookie to, asking ifhe had been sold in IN. We went back to staring at the picture, when all of a sudden we heard the most familiar little wolf whistle (my wolf whistle is funny because I CAN'T do it, so I would just say Wheet Whewww!) followed by an even more familiar and eerie voice saying "Cookie?"

"That's him!" We both said. The woman in the video even asked Cookie to dance, and he did the little bob Jim taught him to do. We called her back immediately and said that it was definitely him, and a list of things he could say. She kept saying "Whatcha doin?" in the video and I know exactly what she wanted him to say- WhatchaDOIN? was his most popular phrase.


She called us back about an hour later and we spent a long time on the phone recounting Cookie stories. I remembered things I had long forgotten and parts of me that had lay dormant for so long. The guilt I have been living with for rehoming him melted away into relief and happiness and we both had tears in our eyes when he squawked a familiar squawk in the background. She told us how wonderful and polite he is and how she could tell he was so loved. I honestly thought he would be better off as a breeding bird and would improve green cheeks with the first breeder- always within reach and we hoped to be in a place to give him a wonderful retirement home someday. We definitely wanted a babyCookie. But her stories and the video- man. Knowing he's remembered that for this long and still steps up and is a gentleman even after being a breeder (He has many babies, a few with Jeanie in incubators now and a few grown that were born back here, see pamperedpeeps.com and the bird "Lindbergh" is Cookie's son!) just makes me melt for him and Jim. I truly think this was the way things were supposed to be. The people the babies live with/will live with needed them.. and now Cookie will come home to us to live out his days.

Jim is out of his skin with joy.

Because all of our bird supplies were donated, we are watching craigslist for a nice cage and will send a deposit to Jeanie to hold him and take care of his munchies and such. She is happy to keep him for us- I think she loves him, too-I have already packed away a few bird toys for the inevitable purchase of our permabirds and as Fate would have it they are all conure sized.

To spike your memories, here are some snippets from entries involving Cookie (its from most recent to least recent)


May 8 2006-Cookie, our conure, ever so sweetly asked us if we wanted a cookie the other day. She hasnt said that in quite a while, I was proud of her.

Mar 16, 2006 Then I spent some time pinching the waxy coverings to her new feathers and scraping them off, relieving pressure and scratching those itchy places. SHe enjoyed it, she was very relaxed. Then when I was rearranging her cage for some new toys I got her, she freaked and I ended up having to grab her off the floor before she got under the loveseat. Sigh

Mar 19, 2006

Cookie, world. World, Cookie. Yes, Cookie is a very normal name and I know you are used to these great names I come up with. I'll have you know that Cookie told me that that was what she wanted to be called, and I dont know about you, but I wasnt going to argue with a statement like that. So her name is Cookie. Please ignore the molt and what looks like a bare cage.

We really are a very nice bird, yes we are. Dr. Kersting says we are perfect and free from flaw, mommy has a great eye for nice birds, yes she does.

Can we say, "Jim needs to go to work so we can buy a DSLR?" Yes, we can...

Oh boy, a bath!

Cookie has recently slowed with her exclamations about Cricket.

She doesnt make conure noises anymore. Her calls are wolf whistles and "Whatcha doin"s. She says

Whatcha doin?

What ARE you doing?

Whatareyoudoing?

Whatareyoudoing.

What ARE you doing.

And yes, they all sound different. Sometimes she gets overly excited and sSCREAMS part of the sentence, and she can also whisper. She squawks and says random things, she'll even poop if I talk about it enough. She listens to me and absolutely loves our morning talks when I sit in there and jabber on and explain whatever it is Im doing at the time, I really do love her. Deep down I do. But I miss Cricket.

(Cricket died of unknown causes on the drive from Missouri to Arizona. He was my baby, I had dreamed of having a parrotlet for a very long time and he was my first child. He died in my hands and after this I felt very unattached to Cookie, who preferred Jim anyhow and didn't seem to mind).

Jan 2 '06
OK today we settled on an apartment in Glendale. Anyone from Phoenix? Is that a crappy neighborhood?
Im so nervous about picking an apartment without seeing it. But we have to reserve it. Its the last 2 bedroom they have, and I just cant get stuck with Cricket and Cookie screaming at each other in a one bedroom (our birds) or have Simon (our kitten) eat them in the livingroom. But we are one step closer to our new home-area. :)

Oct 19, 2005
We have a new bird. I got a Green Cheeked Conure and I think she's a she. Cricket, Bird, and I are all going to the vet tomorrow at 2ish to make sure she's healthy and he's still healthy. I think she is an 04 model and she wont step-up.