Lucy Must Die

If you read the previous post, you know that I am on bed rest. I am allowed one stair trip a day. Our downstairs has the kitchen, tv, bathroom, spare bedroom, etc. and of course Lucy. Lucy weighs less than 2 lbs is bright red and can crack a brazil nut. Still haven't guessed? Lucy is a Green Wing Macaw.

Lucy is our 2nd bird. When I met Mike, he had Charlie, a Budgie. Very tiny and only somewhat noisy. Charlie died unexpectedly and we were very sad. We buried him in our back yard. After that, we started looking for a new bird. We went from a 2oz budgie to one of the largest parrots that exist. I actually picked Lucy, she had quite a personality.

In the beginning, it was clear that she LOVED Mike and tolerated me. Over time, as Mike spent less and less time at home, Lucy got more and more attached to me. She really seems to be most comfortable with a set schedule. It takes her up to two weeks to adjust to a new schedule. When I started working at home, it took two weeks for her to stop screaming. I don't mean, just an "aaaack aacccck", I mean throw down, arch your back, toss your body across the cage screaming. It is 10 times worse than a fork scraping across a chalkboard. She settled in and I could easily work and be on the phone. If my schedule goes off because I have to go into the office, then we go back to square one.

Well, me going into the hospital put us at square one. I was so glad to be at home in my own bed or on my own couch. Since I am allowed one stair climb, I thought I would stay downstairs during the day, keep Lucy company and go up at night. Well, hmmm, nice idea. One the phone started ringing that was it. Lucy couldn't stand that I wasn't talking to her so she started screaming. I tried to make Lucy think I was talking to her by looking directly at her and making eye contact. I had to get up and move to another room. Well then my cat puked and the odor was bad so I got up to get our steam machine to clean the floor. I continued to get calls through out the day with no rest in between. It was then, I started to get worried. My contractions were getting closer and closer and they were increasing because my activity and stress levels were rising quickly. If I didn't get the contractions slowed down, I was going back into the hospital.

Lucy's screaming was sending me over the edge. I didn't have thoughts of killing her but finding ways to get her out of the way. I thought about putting her in the garage. I was worried about fumes and that she had no cage. So then I thought I would tether her to a chair out back. That wasn't a bad idea except that she would chew up the furniture and a dog might get her. Then I remembered I had a roll of duct tape. I could just wrap her beak up a few times but then she couldn't eat. Plus, duct tape leaves a sticky residue and my husband would know that something was up. I was so tired and so stressed I thought that she was going to cause me to go into labor and I would end up having these kids too early which would create some physical issues. That was when I thought "sell her", get rid of her, drop her off at someone's house and then change our phone number. My anger and frustration was now all deflected on Lucy and with Lucy gone all of my problems would be solved.

We all know that isn't true though. She is like any other pet that is trying to figure out what is going on. I am just modifying my schedule to stay away from her for now. I am up in my bed with my laptop and things are quiet again. I am taking fewer calls and my husband made me breakfast and brought up some food for the day - including a pick glass of grape kool-aid, oh yeah!

I have stopped thinking of ways to quiet Lucy and am getting some rest. She is probably more at peace as well because she isn't distracted by having me in the room. Perhaps things are normalizing and I am getting the idea of what bed rest really means. Definitely need to set limits and do the things to keep peace in the house and the contractions down.

So Lucy will live another day or at least until she startes screaming again...