Whirlwind Mornings!

When I graduated college and began my new office job, I knew it would be easy to adjust and get used to a daily routine of waking up early and leaving for work on time. I was right. For the first few months I woke up an hour before I had to be in the office and left promplty 15 minutes before my required arrival time.

Of course, that did not last long.

Now, if I am not awake by a certain time, the parrots begin their complaining, crying, and squawking so that I have no choice but to roll out of bed. My body hates me on some mornings, especially when it is still dark outside my window and way, way earlier than I would like to be awakened! Alarm clocks are now irrelevant in the bedroom because my parrots make enough ruckus to frustrate my entire household. More craziness ensues as I open each of their cages and they burst out of there like torpedoes gone haywire, which is followed by a good 15 to 20 minutes of morning flock screaming (in the wild, flocks of parrots 'scream' in unison first thing in the morning to let others know that they have made it through the night and are still alive...and they do this again in the evening to let others know they have made it through the day..I must say, it is horrendous music to my ears).

How could anyone resist our cuteness?!

I suppose I should not complain, since I end up feeling extremely productive by the time I am through these new morning rituals. Now my mornings consist of taking out all of their food bowls, throwing out any leftover foods, washing & drying them, and refilling with new foods, cleaning up the food & poop mixture they leave every day, vacuuming, cooking, bathing the birds, all the while enjoying their ever consistent screeching (but I would not have it any other way).

Fresh foods are a necessity, so most mornings I am in the kitchen cooking and chopping up fresh vegetables and fruits (did I mention I share my room with swarms of fruit flies sometimes?)  Then of course the bottoms of all their cages need to be cleaned out since they do not actually eat everything in their food bowls. A favorite activity of theirs is throwing flinging food around and painting anything within a four foot radius, which means more cleaning for me! I never imagined I would be scrubbing dried fruit off my drywalls, although sometimes I contemplate tye-dye walls as a new interior design idea.

Parrots also need to take frequent baths, especially when they are molting (growing in new feathers in the form of "pins" which is the equivalent to new teeth growing in, so it is very uncomfortable and itchy). They join me in the shower most mornings and I will stand there with all parrots sitting on my arms and fingers until they are drenched to the skin, all the while screaming because they are having a great time and they want me to know it! Then I take a short shower because by then they have used up most of the warm water, and we all dry off as I finish up dressing for work. Drying my hair and applying makeup have lost importance (who has time for that anyway? Air-drying is best!)

Gotta stay nice and clean!

It is incredible how quickly the floors become COVERED in pieces of nuts, wood, vegetables, pellets, you name it! Vacuuming is should be a daily thing but with the limited time I have in the mornings, it has become more of a weekly thing. I know, I am becoming lazy (no excuses but it IS quite hard getting up hours earlier during winter mornings). So I will be vacuuming, replacing spoiled newspapers on the bottoms of the cages, making sure the birds' food bowls have enough variety (I have so many containers -- each with different kinds of food in them), and making sure everything gets put away in airtight containers (to keep all the bugs out)! If I am lucky I will have about 5 minutes to get to work, which means I am always running late -- this is largely due to the fact the birds do not enjoy returning to their cages so I've had to become creative in bribing them with "extra" special  food. Otherwise, I have to prepare myself for a nice beating of my fingers from their razor sharp beaks, but I don't blame them! How DARE I put them back in their cage when they should be allowed to have full reign over the entire bedroom, right?!
I always feel guilty leaving my parrots in their cages as I leave for work. If I could have it my way, I wouldn't have to work and I could stay at home with them all the time and let them play out of their cages all day (a girl can dream, right?) But if I didn't work I couldn't provide them with their insane amount of toys! This is why it is so important to make sure they have LOTS of activities to entertain themselves with in their cages. Parrots love to chew and play so I make sure to provide them with a huge variety of toys made of all types of woods, shreddable things, rope, leather, stainless steel and plastics. I love buying and making new toys for them -- especially because they don't need fancy things! The Caiques have a wonderful time playing with a ball of paper towel and will spend hours chewing apart wooden popsicle sticks strung together with some rope. One of my favorite things to do is watch them interact with one another and play with their toys! It has to be one of the top 5 cutest things of all time!

let's see how quickly I can destroy this