About once a year birdies all over the world talk about their daddy birdies with reverenced tones about how good a daddy birdie they are and sometimes special gifts are given or dinners and special messages sent to their birdie daddy. This happens to me, I have six birdies who send me good wishes on this day and I sometimes wonder how this all came about. I never set out to be a good birdie daddy, it just happened, but how did it happen?
Well my first memory of a birdie daddy was when I was just a little birdie and my mommy birdie and daddy birdie let me sleep in their special nest with them, I loved it! It was so warm and cozy! But after a while I got pushed out of their nest into my own little nest and it wasn't so warm and cozy and I was scared and felt alone. My older brother and sister birdies were all sleeping in their own birdies nests and doing quite fine so I decided this was just the way it had to be. Besides a new little birdie was now sleeping with my mommy and daddy birdies and she was so cute and tiny! At least our nests were all close together in the same tree so it wasn't too bad, but still I sometimes cried at my mommy's nest door to come in but she said no and so I eventually gave up on that idea. Plus I got to be a bigger and bigger birdie and I didn't even fit in their nest anymore so it was all good.
In time my older brother and sister birdies flew away from our tree and found a new birdie to live with and they began having their own little birdie families. I found that interesting, but somewhat sad because I missed them. Also the little birdies they had were meesy and seemed kind of gross to me. They would fuss and cry over just about anything and then spit up their food and worst of all they would poop in a diaper that the big birdies had to change- Phew! It smelled really bad and I hated the thoughts of getting my hands messy with anything as gross as that!
Then one day a pretty little birdie offered me some delicious cookies and I really liked them! They were even better than my mommy birdie's cookies. She kept giving me cookies and I decided I liked that pretty little birdie and that we should make our own nest in a new tree just like my older brother and sister birdies did. Up until then I never really thought about how nice it would be to have my own nest in my own tree. My pretty little birdie had all kinds of ideas on how to make the nest nicer and we set about working on the nest with much enthusiasm. Pretty soon I found out that mating was more fun than playing football, working on the farm, or even eating!
So mating and working kept my busy for a good while, until my pretty little birdie said she was going to have a little baby birdie just like my brother and sister birdies had. I was surprised that baby birdies could be had so easily! I wasn't so sure I wanted one of those crying, fussing, spitting up, pooping baby birdies but once they start to come, you can't send them back I was told. When the babie birdy hatched I found he was so cute! And the other birdies said he looked just like me! How could I not be happy about that? Yes, the baby birdie was fussy, cried over I don't know what, and made some pretty smelly, gross messes, but my pretty little birdie took such good care of him I rarely had to bother with any of that. In fact taking care of the new baby birdie became my pretty birdie's passion and she fussed and coddled him day and night. Sometimes I felt like I was all alone in my own nest with my new little family even though we were all together. In time things eased up a little and me and my pretty birdie would spend some time together and wouldn't you know it? Another little birdie was on his way! By then the first little birdie was getting a little big for the nest and we set him up with his own little nest. It was just perfect and I thought any little birdie would just love it! But he didn't, he stood at the door of our nest and cried to come in just like I had when I was a little birdie. I knew we wouldn't all fit in one nest once the new birdie arrived so we worked at making the first little birdie as comfy as possible in his new nest and given lots of time and crying on his part, he finally agreed.
And so it went, another new little birdie would show up and the one before it had to be pushed out of the nest. It got easier though as the older birdies started sleeping together in their new nests and they kept each other company. This happened six times! By then my pretty little birdie was showing signs of wear, yes, she still gushed over the newest baby birdie, but the gushings were not quite as enthusiastic and she was getting woefully behind on keeping all the nests up in our tree. Of course I was busy during the day working for our food and to pay the forest manager for our tree but when I got home it was MY turn to spend some time with the birdies. At first I wasn't sure what to do, but I found they like being read to, being told stories and in general just being played with. Eventually I found we could watch cartoons together while my pretty little birdie desperately tried to get the nests all in order. Cartoons were the greatest! I could just lay around and do nothing but enjoy the cartoons and I was watching all the birdies at the same time.
In time the little birdies didn't want to just watch cartoons or be read to, they wanted to play soccer or be taken to music lessons and things like that so I kept pretty busy doing those sort of things. And even better, I found the older the birdie, the more they could help me with work around the yard! In fact they became so good at helping me that other birdie families hired them away from me to help them do their work! But no worry, there was a steady supply of fresh birdies moving up the ranks to help me. That is until the last birdie came up the ranks and then wasn't there to help me anymore, that was a sad day for old daddy birdie. By then I was an old birdie and lots of things had gone on over the years. All the baby birdies had grown up and left our tree and their nests and even my pretty little birdie wasn't so happy to be with me anymore. I had grown tired and not so fun to be with anymore.
But!! On that special day my baby birdies, now much older, still tell me I was a good daddy birdie. I sometimes don't believe them when I think how I never really wanted to have a bunch of baby birdies and sometimes I wasn't even the good daddy birdie I could have been. However, I think I'm graded on a curve and that's good for me, there were so many bad daddy birdies out there that made me look better than I really was. Plus!! my baby birdies grew up to be smart, good, birdies and that makes me look even better than I deserve also.
So all to say, even though I didn't know what I was doing, I tried to do my best most of the time and with the help from my former pretty little birdie we got them all out of the nests and it seems to be just enough to get happy daddy birdie greetings every year.
Love you crazy birdies, daddy birdie
