Our birds are up to their tricksy antics, as usual.

We’ve been working on Whitebird’s screaming. Mr. Darcy rarely ever screamed, so it’s never been a problem for her, but Whitebird has these…phases. This morning was one of them.

I was getting ready this morning and our birds were happily chirping along with the radio like usual. Whitebird started his “chee-chee-chee” screaming and I said, sharply, “NO!”

Silence.

I think I scared him. Good, that was the point.

Hesitantly, Whitebird started some pretty chirping and I got real close to the cage and started talking in a high-pitched, sing-song voice. “Pretty chirping, nice Whitebird, that’s very lovely.” Whitebird sidled up to the cage wall and got as close as he could to me. He continued his pretty chirping until, suddenly, he started screaming again. “NO!” I said.

Silence.

We repeated this cycle several times over the course of five minutes. Joey was just shaking his head at me. I must have sounded like a fool, cooing at my parakeet one minute and then saying “NO!” the next.

Fortunately, Whitebird likes it when I coo at him. Unfortunately, I sound like one of the Chipmunks!

Fortunately, if any telemarketers ever called our house and Whitebird was screaming, they’d hang up. Unfortunately, it’s very bad manners for Whitebird to scream, and therefore we will train our babies NOT to scream.

So much for the telemarketers.