Forgetting

Monday mornings have a way of sneaking up on all of us. The last couple of months have made them a little more tolerable for me because I’ve been either off or working from home, but somehow they are still Mondays.  Admittedly I have had a small dose of cabin fever at times, but I’d say it beats the alternative. I could get used to this!

This morning as my wife was rushing to get everything done before she headed out the door; she stopped to tick off a few tasks for me if I had, in her words, “time to do some things for her”. Before I answered, I cut my eyes toward the sink because I had a gut feeling one of them was going to be loading the dishwasher, or minimally hand washing the over flow. But the sink was clean and the dishwasher was humming away and…I felt a little generous; maybe even a little guilty?

Turns out all she really wanted was for me to fill up the birdfeeders; Whew! We had both tried to kill ourselves this weekend by painting and rearranging furniture in TWO bedrooms for our daughter, and quite a few of our weekend tasks ended up not getting done. If she was as tired as I was her day was going to be long! It seemed like the least I could do as I really enjoy watching the birds from my big picture window while I work from home.

I walked outside and filled the scoops with seeds from the industrial size bags of sunflowers and “wild” bird mix we keep in the garage. Feeding the birds has become, in modern times, quite expensive and I often threaten to roast a few of those obese doves that feed like chickens protected behind the electric fence; the return on investment for bird feeding is horrible. When I walked outside the cloud of birds that rose from both the ground and the feeders was staggering! All shapes, sizes and colors with one thing in common; they were addicted to my ringing the dinner bell.

It only took a few seconds for them to return to the feeders and by the time I made it back to my computer they were feeding away as if nothing had happened. Cardinals were everywhere; on the feeders, the ground but the one that drew my attention was fluttering on the wood fence. He was very excited and I watched as another bird of similar size and color lit beside him and placed a seed in his open beak. He was obviously a baby that had yet learned the workings of the bird feeders, but honestly I wouldn’t have noticed this had I not witnessed his mother’s feeding him. He was full size; I would have assumed he was an adult.

This was a beautiful sight; watching as a parent teaches it's young the ways of the world, but I admit it made me feel a little guilty. Guilty for getting mad at my daughter yesterday when, in the middle of day two of our painting and rearranging, ran out of gas. Guilty for forgetting that just because she could lift the other end of the sofa like an adult, she was still not an adult. I don’t intend to treat her any differently than I have in the past; she is smart, quick-witted and on the way to becoming a great young woman. I only need to remind myself now and again just how long I’ve been coming to this feeder!