chickens!

Jack, my bird-loving son, is now the proud owner of three birds. Chickens! Yesterday Tuesday Mom, the experienced chicken owner, took us to Half Moon Bay Feed 'N Seed to buy our little chicks that will be providing us with eggs from springtime to Thanksgiving, at which point they will be dinner. It is important to not get too attached to them, so we decided we shouldn't name them. But then their breed names were just too cute: the yellow one is a Buff Orpington and the black and white one is a Barred Plymouth Rock and the all black one is a Black Sex-Link (okay so that one's not that cute). And with names like those, how can you not call them Buffy, Rocky, and Sexy? Danny says I'm not allowed to call them that. I can only call them Thanksgiving, or Dinner. We'll see. They're so cute now, but in a few weeks they'll be molting and the cutest names in the world won't save them from their fate of reptilianesque ugliness.

For now, they are enjoying pooping in their water and huddling up together under the heat lamp, cheeping at all hours of the day and night, and trying to escape our grasp whenever we pick them up for Jack to get a closer look. They are living in the kitchen closet once dubbed The Kid's Room, which now I guess is the Chicken Room.



Jack is delighted. I'd like to say that this is a 13-month birthday present, but I forgot it was he was 13 months today until just now. But he marked the day, whether or not we noticed, with a lot of firsts. He made his first "ca" sound, pointing at Julius, so I'm pretty sure he has added the word cat to his vocabulary (his fifth? word after bird, book, mama and dada). He stood up for the longest time I have seen yet, maybe 20 seconds, before plopping down on his bottom. He may have taken his first step, which really was more of a shuffle of his weight while he was standing up with his hands full of shampoo bottles, so I'm not sure it counts. But he's getting close! He placed a block on top of a tower instead of just destroying it, which shows he's starting to understand the concept of building. And he knows where his nose is. But that's old news. He learned that with his nana on Friday. He's growing up so quickly now, I'm having trouble keeping track of it!

By the time the chickens are running around the backyard, he may just be running around with them.