Being the Dad

(View from our deck, a family of swans. Wishing I had a better camera!)

Jeff has been traveling a lot lately and this morning, while making breakfast,
I had to be the Dad.
Oh! - how I wanted to call out his name to fix the problem...
but he's in NYC and that's really far away.

Backing up:

The boys were just coming downstairs for breakfast when I heard a loud "bang" on the big window in the great room. I looked over and saw a robin fly away. I looked down and saw another robin on the deck, shaking. Within seconds, Alec and Ian were looking over my shoulder, through the window, at the poor thing. I couldn't see any blood, but it hit the window pretty hard and it wasn't trying to get up.


My first thought was to leave it there and see what would happen - until Jeff came home late tonight, but when I glanced over at Alec, looking worrisome, I knew I had to do something. I went out to the garage, grabbed Jeff's work gloves, put on my slippers, and went out onto the deck to rescue the bird! (for Alec)

I bent down and was surprised at how close it was letting me get to it. I placed my hand next to the bird, gently touching it, so it knew I wasn't going to hurt it. I then picked it up and walked over to the window so the boys could get a closer look. I couldn't believe I had a robin in my hands! They couldn't believe it either! They came out to pet it before I gently set it on the ledge of our deck, so he could see his friends in the tree above.

The minute I put it down it just stood there. It hopped a few times. I tried to examine his legs & wings, and, as far as I could tell, they looked just fine. I walked away and, as I did, it pooped. The boys saw it first and you would have thought that was the funniest thing that had happened all year! We went inside to start breakfast, keeping our eyes on our little bird friend.

After a few bites of english muffin & banana, I went out again to try and snap a picture of Mr. Robin, but, as I got closer to him, he flew away! He was okay! We watched as he flew up to his friends on the bottom branch of this tree.

What a morning! I don't think I'll have the chance to get that close to a Robin again -

unless we clean the dirty window he ran into.

If we do that, who knows how many birds will end up on our deck,
needing to be rescued while our dad is away.