Charlie

Here's the post I know you have all been waiting for! Rumors have been flying (literally!) so I better get the story straight. When I went to primary Sunday one of the girls said, "I heard you got a parrot!" Charlie's not quite a parrot but here he is.

For those of you that haven't known me for very long it might come as a bit of a shock that we got a pet. Anyone that has known me for a long time though knows that I really love animals. When I was a kid I won a gold fish at a church activity (a real one!) I'm not sure what my parents thought about that but I loved having my own pet. I remember one day when I was trying to clean his bowl I accidentally dumped my poor fish down the drain. I was so sad but my dad was able to rescue the fish and he lived for a while longer. I also brought a toad home from school that I was really excited about. What I really wanted was a dog. I begged my parents for years to let me have a dog. Our next door neighbors had two German Shepherds and I would spend hours at the fence playing with them. When I was 11 they finally gave in and we got my dog Alex who instantly became part of our family.

I always thought I would have a dog as an adult but we spent a lot of years in apartments when we were first married. We had some fish but that was it. When we finally did get a house I realized having a dog didn't sound quite so fun anymore. I was already overwhelmed with taking care of two small children with a husband that was always gone for his medical residency and decided the last thing I needed was a pet to take care of. As my kids got older my feelings really didn't change. I didn't want the responsibility of a pet and when I finally got my dream home and started buying some nice furniture I didn't want a dog to ruin it. That's when Andrew started asking for a dog. After we told him no several times he decided to ask Santa last year with no luck. This year I was starting to feel guilty and we decided to give Santa permission to bring a pet so Jason and I took a trip to the pet store trying to decide what kind of pet would be good for Andrew. Fish seemed a little dull, I've never liked cats (no offense intended to any cat lovers out there!) rodents are just gross and I'm deathly afraid of snakes (lizards aren't a whole lot better.) That's when we found the birds and they started to sound a lot more appealing.

The first few days we had Charlie I was wondering if it was a mistake. The poor bird was terrified and just stood on his perch shivering. The kids were so excited to get him but quickly got bored when he wasn't doing anything. After a couple days he started to get a little more active eating, chirping and exploring his cage. We've had him just over a week now and he's getting to be a lot of fun. We've even started taking him out of his cage and he's letting us hold and pet him now. We found his favorite treat is carrots and hopefully soon we can start teaching him some tricks. He's starting to call to us when he wants attention as well as mimic some of our sounds. Andrew is doing a great job taking care of him and cleaning his cage!

So far he has been a great pet. My French sister-in-law thought we were crazy for getting a parakeet. Maybe they don't have pet birds in France or maybe she knows something I don't. Anyway, don't forget to take my poll. I'm anxious to see what everyone else would choose for a pet!