after the weekend

Morning, before the kids are up and things are....a little better here than the last time I posted.

Then, it was nearly midnight and I was hunched over my laptop at the top of the stairs, trying to make sense of how two tiny creatures in MY care had died and how I was going to deal with that fall out with my kids.

I don't think I had yet realized that I had to deal with my own feelings about it all and I really did.

For better or for worse, I am a care giver and no matter what else has happened in my life I have clung to the belief that I am the best I can be when it comes to doing that and that by now, I'm pretty good at it - at least when it comes to pets.

Complacency can really bite you in the butt in a very HARD way.

I should have done the research on Canaries first, before they ever crossed the lintel into the house.

I should not have expected the research I had done on finches and the experience we did have with a cockatiel and the information provided by the hobby breeder lady who gave them to us to be enough to go on.
From everything I have learned in the past day, through that research that I should have done in the beginning...my best guess is that the poor little critters keeled over from stress. That the same conditions that they lived in at the Bird Lady's house just didn't work for them here.
At her house, they all live in small cages, usually with more than one bird to a cage and although that works for her, it is highly unusual for it to work for most canaries because other than in the breeding season, they are highly territorial birds and they don't want to be near each other.

The last and final canary, the one that was brought over only two days after the first male died...is actually doing very, very well. He is thrilled to have his own, big cage and sings and sings and sings and is the very freaking picture of unstressed health - eating well, drinking well and flitting and twittering and generally charming the heck out of the household.

About my littlest girl.
Sometimes she is better, there are times, minutes even where she forgets to be a princess made of solid ice. It is just the run up to her birthday is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excruciatingly difficult for her and therefore on every other person around her.

There are times when I am horrified to say that I don't like her, even a little bit.

I LOVE her but oh, I don't like her. She is not at all likeable, except of course in front of other people.

If my husband did not see and recognize that she is crazy making and manipulative - I would likely go nuts because every other adult sees this adorable, cute little person that I am lucky to have.

It is hard to have a kid that you don't like, that you sometimes, briefly wish had never become your problem, because you just don't feel like you are making any headway.

It makes you take hard looks at parts of yourself you just never want to see.

But maybe this crisis of a weekend was a good turning point for her.
Saturday, she was unbelievably quiet and restrained and Sunday, she was very much like a normal kid would be.

Maybe it is because her birthday is tomorrow and we are nearly over that terrible time.

Maybe it won't last.
Maybe it will.

Thanks for all your kind comments. They helped.
A lot.