Still alive and a surprise

We've had a harder time than usual keeping up the last couple of weeks.  I'm not sure there is enough time to keep up with work, homeschooling, and the animals.  L had a dance performance yesterday, so we were making a few trips to Verona each week for extra practices.  That was time I didn't have to spare.  I feel rotten and panicky all of the time, because I can't keep up with this, but none of my commitments are optional.  So of course it would be just during this time period that my computer started misbehaving and ultimately dying.

The problems slowed my work down significantly for the past week, but I didn't have the time to deal with it, so I just kept working and hoping the computer would keep up.  It continued to get worse but still no time to do anything other than the most basic troubleshooting.  Long, long story short.  It failed.  I failed to fix it. I'm farther behind and more frustrated. My friend, O, is the recovery expert and will pick it up tomorrow.  Fingers are crossed!

L & H have had a nasty cold (that keeps getting worse!) for the last couple of weeks, while I've had a minor one.  Last night, mine became major and it's quite rotten.  I feel so bad that the poor children have had to suffer this!  I have an unbelievable amount of work that needs to be done, but I feel too foggy and crappy to give it the attention it deserves.  By blogging, I can at least cross a very overdue item off my list.  I'm hoping I feel better tomorrow and can be more focused.

So the pictures/video in this post are the other enormous monkey wrench that's been thrown into this mess.  Imagine my shock (and the pit that appeared in my stomach) when L informed me this morning that there was a freshly hatched cockatiel that wasn't there last night when I "tucked them in".  Our birds have laid eggs for decades and we've never had baby cockatiels.  The eggs are always infertile and eventually abandoned.  These two cockatiels have laid, perhaps ten clutches of eggs--none of which contained viable 'babies'.  Generally, cockatiels are picky breeders, requiring a nest box and very specific conditions.  Neither of these birds had ever bred/parented before.

They've always been faithful sitters, and this time was no exception, but none of us expected a live creature to emerge!  They were as shocked as we were, when a living creature emerged.  They fled the cage in which the  squeaky creature lay, and looked down at it very intently and trepidatiosly from up above.  The pathetic little creature was cold and was furiously squeaking for warmth and food.  The parents were frightened. L and I ran out to get handfeeding mix for birds.  I feed the baby, which was very tough the first time.  The beak is still quite soft--like skin.  The baby doesn't even know to open the beak yet, so it has to be gently pried apart.  You can see the little egg tooth in some of the images.  That will be gone soon.  We had to lure them to and close them in the cage, in an effort to push them into parenting, and then I tentatively placed the full, tired baby near them.

New c. parents often fail their first time.  They seem to take a round or so of experience to catch on. {I have never bred birds or experienced this but have researched the topic.}  Daddy immediately ran to cover and protect the egg from the squeaky creature.  Mommy (in the foreground of the video, with the 'pearls' on her back feathers) came over and watched the creature very curiously, and after a few minutes, came up and gently touchebd it with her beak.  She timidly started grooming the baby's fluff.  L and I watched her closely (partially out of curiosity, but mostly to make sure the baby didn't get injured in any way) and saw her increasingly gain confidence with her mothering, and we saw the moment the maternal instinct kicked in.  Mommy's expression changed, and she immediately--carefully and confidently--tucked the baby underneath her and then directed very protective body language toward us.  She let us know it was HER baby and we would have to get through her to get to that baby.

I've been feeding the quickly-growing baby every two hours and will have to continue to do so through the night.  UGH!  That means no Nyquil for cold relief. :-(  We're getting better at the feeding thing each time.  Baby can hold her head up for a few seconds at a time and opens the little beak most of the time during feeding.  Mommy and daddy are doing a spectacular job of keeping her clean and warm.  They hiss at me but ultimately let me remove baby for feedings.  I really, really wish they would figure out the feeding thing and take over.  I can tell by the size of baby's crop that they are not yet feeding her at all.  L told me earlier today, when the parents were still staring at the little creature with confusion, that she felt like she was watching "Sixteen and Pregnant" (which she's heard about but has not seen).