Good morning Baby

Pictures: Luke having a bath, Luke and Derek sitting in the living room with our new tables (notice the lamp is no longer on a rubbermaid and the cardboard box is gone!).

When I was younger I had a cockatiel in a cage in my bedroom. The cage hung from the ceiling in the corner and every night I would cover the cage with a sheet. Bisou, my cockatiel, was quite good at imitating speech. He knew several things that I had repeated over and over to him, and a few things that he just picked up on his own. He knew “Hi pretty bird, how are you?”, “Here kitty kitty kitty”(which could go on indefinitely kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty…), a wolf whistle and the charge whistle. He also knew the answering machine message, would garble some message being left and then go “Beep!”.

Whenever I entered a room, or saw Bisou for the first time in a while I would say, “hi pretty bird, how are you?” and he would squawk back a greeting. In the morning when I took the sheet of his cage we would also greet eachother. If I happened to sleep too long, though, Bisou would take the initiative, peek out from under the sheet between the bars and whisper at me, “hi pretty biiiird. Hi pretty biiird. Hi pretty bird how are you?”

The other morning as I watched Luke sleeping in his cage-I mean crib, I wondered what his first word would be. I wondered if he would say whatever I say the most to him. I realized I probably say “Good morning Baby” the most and began imagining Luke peeking through the slats of his crib, peering into my room whispering questioningly “Good mooorning. Good mooorning. Good morning baby”.