I have never had children, but they say that having a parrot is the next closest thing.  Based on my experience, I am inclined to think that the survival of the Mom in the first year is a greater miracle than the survival of the child.  It brings to mind the cartoon of the happy, babbling baby exploring his new world and the Mom who looks like a train wreck.

I suspect that every new Mom has something that is THE fear.  There are lots of medium and smaller sized fears to keep it company, of course, but there is one that is always looming, ready to pounce on you.  For me, with a new African Grey, it was that he would start plucking his feathers.  This is a reality for a lot of birds, especially Greys, as they stress easily.  So, there it would be, like one of those awful Jack-in-the-Boxes, ready to pop up with its evil laugh “He’s going to pluck his feathers!”  If I had a nickel for every time I worried about him plucking his feathers, I could buy a titanium plated hammer and smash that Box to smithereens.

When I look back on the first night I had him home, it is rather comical how high strung I was.  It wasn’t so funny at the time, though.

I brought him from the pet store early in the day.  I introduced him to each room in my apartment, gave him some of his favorite treats, and let him take his time investigating his new cage.  He seemed to be doing ok.

But then it was time to put him to bed.  I had the idea of having him sleep in a smaller cage at night.  So, I got him all set up and then tried to steel my heart against the little eye peering desperately from under the blanket I put over the cage.  I closed the door so the room would be dark, but left it cracked so I could hear what was going on.  I lasted about 5 minutes before I had to check on him.  He was still peering at me from under the blanket.  This time I tried to leave him longer.  I kept hearing him clinking around on the food bowls.  He wasn’t settling down.  I waited.  Still noisy.  I needed to go to bed too.  So, I got ready and I could still hear him moving around.  He wasn’t comfortable and he was probably scared.   Cue the Box: “He’s going to pluck his feathers!”

So, I moved him into my bedroom.  He was in the small cage, on my floor.  But no, that’s no good.  He’s not going to be happy there.  Too low.  Birds like to be high.  So, I found something to put him on.  I covered him with the blanket again and turned out the lights.  We both eventually quieted down, but I wouldn’t vouch for the quality of sleep.  Believe it or not, he still had all his feathers in the morning, and from then on, I decided he would sleep in his big cage, and he did so very happily.  Take THAT, Mr. Jack-in-the-Box.

I was in my mid-thirties when I got Philip.  If we consider the fact that some girls are pretending to be a Mommy by age 3, I had 30 odd years of pent up mothering in me.  I treated Charlie like a pet.  Philip was my baby.  And oh, my goodness gracious, did the volcano erupt.  That first night home was only the beginning.

I explored all the fears that could possibly be related to owning a bird.  Checked them off one by one.  Yep, been there, felt that.  Then I moved on to other unexplored territories.  I never had a deep yearning to have a family like some women do, so I didn’t consider myself an overly nurturing person.  Yeah.  Well, apparently I was wrong.  And not just nurturing.  MOTHER BEAR ON STEROIDS PROTECTIVE.  I am already emotional by nature.  Did I really need MORE emotions?  Really?  I called my Mom one day and asked her if I was going nuts.  She calmly assured me it was perfectly normal, and yes, I was going nuts.  That’s what happens to women when they become mothers.  Thanks, Mom.

This was not a part of design I was expecting to unpack.  I was looking for the esoteric stuff about birds and nature and the spiritual realm.  But apparently God knew there were some facets of my nature that needed some rounding out.  This bird was wreaking havoc on me in some unexpected and very earthy ways.

There is a particular sound a parrot makes when they are scared or hurt.  Even if you’ve never heard it before, you know instantly that it is not good.  So, if Philip was in another room and started making that noise, I came like a shot to see what was going on.  Much of the time, he had gotten his foot caught in his twisty swing and got it back out without my help.  But one time, there was a real crisis.  He got startled and flew off his cage towards my living room.  On one wall was my furnace.  He drifted down by it, but didn’t land, and immediately began flapping and making that noise.  It took me about two seconds to realize he had caught his toe in the grill of the furnace.

I rushed over and tried to help him.  He was squawking and I was praying.  I realized we weren’t going to get anywhere until he calmed down, so I just supported his body and talked to him.  Eventually he stopped flapping and I could work his toe out of the grill.  Thankfully, it wasn’t broken.  We just sat there for a few minutes.  Wow.  If I can feel what I felt for a bird, I can’t even imagine what I would feel for my own child.  No wonder the new Mom looks like a train wreck.

I also discovered the strange phenomenon that occurs where everything you see everywhere is filtered through the grid of “could I buy that for my bird (child)?”  Really, it didn’t matter what kind of store I was in.  As long as whatever it was didn’t violate the lengthy “don’t do” list of parrot ownership, it was fair game.   For a long time, one of his favorite toys was actually designed for cats.  I tried all kinds of foods and toys out on him.  No store was safe when I was around.

But in the midst of all of the earthy, moody, wild emotional rollercoastering, there were some truly profound moments.  One of the first ones involved a ladder.