Blog Bird Blog!

I finally got a little birdy! It's a blue and white parakeet. I found out from a person working at the pet store that apparently you can tell a parakeet's gender by looking at it's beak; males have darker beaks than females. Right now, this bird is a little too young to tell for sure, since the beak's color doesn't stop developing until around 6-7 months of age. Currently I'm going with the assumption that it's a female because the beak is a bright orange color, but if it starts to turn darker, I'll know otherwise and start to refer to it using male pronouns.

Finding a name for it was pretty difficult. In the end I settled on Piper. Originally it was going to be Colby if it was male, which I had intended to be short for "cobalt" in reference to its color. I found the name Piper on a site linked by Marine, and thought it fit since it refers to someone who plays a musical instrument. Since birds whistle, why not? And it sounds like it could be either a male or female name.

I'm kind of amazed by how small it is. I have a picture of my first parakeet, Tweety, hanging above my desk right now. She lived for about 10 years, possibly longer, a really long time for a parakeet. In this picture over my desk, she looks pretty big. Or, long, I guess? Compared to her, Piper's head looks too big for her body. I'd say she's about half an inch or more shorter than Tweety was at full size.

We got rid of the old bird cage we used before after the last bird, Nia, died, so we got a new one this time. It has black bars and a top shaped like the roof of a house and is a bit bigger than the last one. I liked the black bars at first, but since currently there's only a couple of perches, a swing, and a seed spray inside of it, it looks pretty sparse. Eventually I want to get maybe another toy or two, some better perches (having perches that are all the same size is actually bad for a bird's feet) and maybe a nesting box. Well in spite of its size, it was relatively easy to put together at least.

Getting Piper into the cage was easier than I thought it would be. I just put the box up to an open door, gave it a light tap on the back, and she flew through the door into the cage, panicked a little, flapping around in the bottom of the cage, and then settled down onto the bottom perch near the back right corner of the cage, where she's been since. Like with my last bird, I sat with her for a while, whistling to her, and slowly moving my hand towards her on the outside of the cage so she would get used to my hand. When she didn't react too much, I opened one of the cage doors and started to stick my hand slowly inside, moving closer to her every now and then. If she started to shy away, I would stop, but for the most part she was still, only turning her head occasionally to look at me, my hand, or to try to find the source of the whistling noise I was making. I did this over the span of about 10-15 minutes, moving my hand closer all the time. She watched as I stretched out my pointer finger towards her and pressed the tip of my finger on the perch next to her. I was well within reach at that point if she wanted to bite, but she didn't. I lightly touched one of her front talons, and she kept watching me, but otherwise didn't react, so I lifted my finger and slowly reached out to touch her stomach, and success! She let me touch her and stroke her feathers.

I stayed like that for a while before pulling my hand back out of the cage, and continued to sit with her before repeating the process, moving a little more quickly this time. She let me pet her again, hardly shying away at all. A couple of time, since she was sitting near the side of the cage, I managed to stick a finger between the bars and stroke her wing. It will take a while longer, but I think she's starting to settle in and get used to me.

She still hasn't moved from that spot, or made any noises, but that's normal for a bird still trying to get used to its new home. Even at the store, she was really shy compared to the other birds. Right now, as I'm typing this, she's curiously watching my every move. I caught her yawning once and her feather's are slightly puffed up compared to how they were before, so I think she's starting to relax. I've even seen her with her eyes closed a couple of times too, like she's about to doze off.

So far, it looks like she's settling in with no problem. I'll update with a picture later, if I can get one, and post updates gradually if anything new happens. With Nia, I was able to teach her tricks and Piper's disposition seems pretty similar to hers so far, so I might start doing things like that within the next week or so.

 

Well I said I'd post a picture if I could, and @Gwoomy asked to see one too, so here it is!

Spoiler: Piper the Parakeet!

Slight update, she's fallen asleep in the corner of her cage and hasn't moved much, aside from occasional bobbing of her head to watch me every time I do something. She didn't know what the cell phone was when I took the picture of her. I had to put the lens between two of the bars to keep the bars from getting in the way, so I got pretty close. I didn't know the sound was on, so the camera made a click when I took the picture and she kind of tilted her head curiously. Piper is calm, but pretty fearless. More just curious than anything else. Nia would freak out every time I tried to take a picture of her, so unfortunately I was never able to get one of her. I also tried covering the cage with a towel, which was too small, and a jacket that worked slightly better in order to keep the cage covered at night so she can sleep easier and to keep her warm since it's kind of cold in here. I moved slowly as usual, but she didn't mind me covering the cage at all. I'm keeping the side and front uncovered for now so she can still see me and get used to me.

I think my typing woke her up. She's looking at me curiously now. I think she likes the sound the keyboard makes.

Here's more proof of how fearless she is though; my dog finally noticed her. I had moved my chair in front of the cage to sit with Piper for a while and my dog noticed something was different. She saw the cage first and came over, looking up at it. She seemed calm enough, so I let her stand with her front paws on my leg so she could see. That's when she noticed Piper. And started crying. I think my dog thinks she's being replaced. Or just really wants to eat her but knows she's not allowed from when I taught her to leave my last bird alone. After a while, she was still being good, so I let her sit on my lap and look at the cage. Piper didn't care. She's probably used to seeing dogs in the pet store where we got her, but my dog got pretty close to the cage, practically putting her nose against the bars. After I put her back onto the floor and moved my chair so I could eat dinner at my desk, my dog laid underneath the dresser the bird cage is sitting on top of and just kept looking up at it. She finally got bored and went to lay in her dog bed.

I pet her once more since the last post, not as daintily as last time when I was barely touching her, and stroked the feathers on her chest and stomach for a while. Its been so long since I've had a bird, I forgot how warm and soft parakeets are.

I love birds and rodents. Birds are great, but you have to be careful with how you socialize them. Generally they only become attached to a single person and you need to get them when they're young in order for them to get accustomed to you. If you end up deciding on a bird, parakeets are good birds to start off with. They're easy to take care of and live for a decently long time. They generally live for 5-8 years but my first one lived for over 10. Hedgehogs live for 2-5 years, pretty typical for a rodent, so I guess it depends on how much commitment you want to put into having a pet. One upside to a hedgehog though is that they're a lot quieter and easier to clean up after, two things I'm not particularly looking forward to with a bird, if I'm being honest.

 

Last post here for the night, I think. Little Piper is still adjusting, but she's been letting me pet her consistently, which is good. She's been pretty drowsy, so I went ahead and pet her one last time before covering her cage so she could sleep. My dog kept crying and looking at the cage anxiously ever since first noticing Piper. I'm still not sure if she's jealous or is asking permission to eat it, but she's been good so far; no attempts to jump up and get to the cage.

Huh, seems that's the case. The person who explained it at the store didn't explain it very well (actually just said "the beak") and when pointing to an obviously male parakeet pointed to one that also had a dark, bluish beak so I thought that was what she was referring to. It was also hard to tell because all of the birds were flying all over the place trying to stay away from the net and Piper escaped around the same time. Well it applies either way; the cere right now is white, so like I said in the first post I'm just going to act on the assumption for the time being that Piper is a female unless it darkens in the next few months. If that happens, I'll start referring to Piper as a male. Zookeepers do things similarly with their birds, apparently. I saw a show once years ago where they were raising baby penguins and just assumed they were males until they were old enough to tell for sure. I'm assuming the opposite because they start out looking more like females.

In the photo I uploaded earlier, it looks like the cere has sort of a bluish tinge to it, but that might just be because of the bad lighting and the brightness of the feathers that make it look slightly darker by contrast. It's definitely going to be a while before I know for sure.

 

Piper didn't move at all yesterday until I went to bed and turned off the light next to my bed. Immediately I heard her moving around the cage, so after a minute I turned the light on again to see what she was doing. I could see her near the center of the lower perch, bent over and staring at me through a gap in the jacket covering her cage. Silly bird! I heard her moving a couple more times last night and early this morning when I woke up.

I uncovered her cage as soon as I woke up and immediately I could tell that she was more comfortable than yesterday. Before, she had moved her head around and looked at things curiously on occasion, but now her movements seemed a lot more animated. Still no chirps yet though. I said good morning, whistled to her a couple of times, and tried to stick my hand into the cage as I had done yesterday. I guess I took the progress from yesterday for granted though and moved too quickly, because she panicked and started flapping around the cage, eventually settling on the perch connected to her water bowl. I waited for her to calm down before proceeding more slowly this time and managing to pet her, then backed off. She still didn't seem too sure of her surroundings. She half tumbled to the bottom of the cage and just sat there for a while. I left for a while do to some other things and she was still there when I came back. Once I was near though, she bit at the perch on her water bowl again, as if to pull herself up, but then stopped, turning instead to the lower perch and craning her neck to try to get a hold of it. I guess Piper prefers climbing to flying? She was having trouble getting up at first, but eventually jumped and flapped her wings just a couple of times to reach the perch and settle back into the back right corner of the cage. That seems to be her favorite spot so far, but I can tell from the droppings on the bottom of the cage that she probably slept closer to the center of the perch last night.

I kept whistling for a while and tried to pet her once more. This time she let me without incident. Then she started to groom herself and stretch and at that point I noticed something that shouldn't be there. She stretched out her right wing and stretched her right leg along its length at the same time and I noticed for the first time a small metal band around her leg. I guess the store must put them on the birds to keep track of them, but they probably should have taken it off before we took Piper home. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. try to get her back in her box and bring her back to the store, or maybe to a vet, so someone else could take it off, try to take it off myself and maybe traumatize it in the process, or maybe even just leave it on? I'm not sure it's causing any harm, but I can't imagine it's very comfortable. As far as I know, neither of my other two birds had ever been banded like that.

Since there's nothing I can do about the metal band for now, and it might even be better to wait so Piper can get used to her new home before we go doing anything traumatizing, I continued to sit with her and whistle. She tilted and twister her head as before and even turned around on her perch a few times, showing off her beautiful blue wings, either looking around and exploring her cage for the first time, or trying to find the other birds she could hear. My whistling sounds a lot like real bird calls, I've been doing them ever since I was really young, probably since I first learned to whistle. As I kept whistling, she opened her beak repeatedly, almost as if trying to whistle back. I was beginning to think, after seeing how shy she was even at the store, that maybe she couldn't whistle; either didn't know how for some reason or couldn't because of a medical reason. Just as I was starting to think that, I heard a soft little musical chirp. It was very quiet, but still noticeable. It sounded nervous, which I guess is to be expected. I kept whistling and managed to coax two more chirps out of her before she went quiet again.

As I've been typing, she's continued to look all over, stretch and groom occasionally, but hasn't moved much since settling back into the corner. I think she's thirsty because she keeps looking at her water bowl and is currently staring at it pretty intently. I thought she was going to hop over to it a couple of times, but I don't think she's figured out how to just yet. Well she'll have to learn how to move around the cage sooner or later, so I'll just leave her to figure it out for herself for now.

 

Piper's been acting a little nervous all day, probably because I spooked her this morning and she's still trying to adjust, so I've mostly been leaving her alone. She's sat on her perch, occasionally twisting her head around to look at me, as she does, but still not moving much. That finally changed a short time ago! I noticed her craning her neck towards the upper perch and then she started shuffling back and forth along the length of the bottom perch before finally leaping up and gracefully landing on the upper perch. Almost immediately after, she jumped down again and landed on the perch connected to her food bowl. I thought she was finally going to eat, but then my dog, who was laying in her dog bed near by, noticed the commotion and ran towards the cage, growling and trying to jump up at it. I scolded her and chased her out of the room. She'll get used to having a feathery little sibling eventually, I'm sure, but I'm glad I decided to leave my door mostly closed when I went out for lunch earlier.

With the dog gone, Piper sat on the bottom perch for a while longer before jumping up to the top perch again. This time, she had her back facing the front of the cage and started to shuffle along the length of it again, coming closer to the side where I sat every time I whistled to her. She craned her neck towards the swing at the back of the cage and bit at it, but apparently decided that she didn't want to attempt to get on because she moved to the side of the cage and stretched her neck towards the seed spray I have hanging near the right side of the cage. I'm guessing Piper must still be very young because she seems unsteady a lot of the time and unsure about doing simple things like reaching out for a perch or moving from one perch to the other. She's a little clumsy too, as evident by what happened next.

Giving up on the seed spray (I think I need to move it closer to the perch) Piper moved back towards the swing, biting at it again before attempting to jump up. I say "attempting" because the next second she was hanging upside-down by one foot and stayed there for a while, apparently not knowing what to do. Eventually she figured out that she could latch onto the side of the cage with her beak and swing around to grab onto the bars with her talons. She did that and climbed back up onto the swing, where she stood with one foot curled around the perch and the other around the side of the swing. I think this is probably the first moving perch she's ever stood on, so I guess it makes sense she would be a little clumsy with it at first. I managed to get a couple of pictures of her first time on the swing, finding out as I did that my 3DS camera actually works really well for this. You can also see the metal band on her leg I mentioned in the last post, especially in the second one.

Spoiler: Piper likes her swing!

Just a couple of minutes ago, she noticed the mirror on the swing (the pink thing on the left, her right, side of the swing. The other one is some kind of spinning toy.) She didn't really do much with it, just looked at it and sort of bobbed her head a little. She's moved more towards the center of the swing now too, so I think she's gotten use to it. One exciting thing is that she chose to sit facing towards me. I think she really likes watching what I'm doing.

I've also discovered that her favorite whistles are my imitation of a whippoorwill and another 3 part bird call that I've never been able to identify. I found my old bird call that I haven't used in years, which works by turning a metal piece against a wooden dowel. If I do it a certain way, it sound pretty similar to a parakeet's happy chattering. Surprisingly though, she doesn't pay much attention to it. She actually seems to prefer my whistling.

 

That's actually really cool! I didn't know since neither of my previous two had bands on them. Maybe the stores I got them from took them off, because it looks like imported birds have bands on them too, just a different type. I looked into it and sure enough the store I got Piper from gets their birds from breeders. The way she's sitting now, I can see numbers but some of them are covered by her feathers. I can kind of make out a 1, a 6 and a number I think is a 9 but I can't really tell. I can see there are more, but they're covered up by the leg feathers. If I can eventually get her to perch on my finger, I might be able to take a closer look.

You're teaching me a lot of things I didn't know about parakeets.

 

My mom's always complaining about noises that annoy her. When we went to get Piper she was looking at this swing with a bell attached and I was like "Are you crazy?" Partially because Piper's staying in my room, so it would annoy me.

We ended up getting the swing with a mirror and a spinning toy. My last bird had a mirror and my bird before that had a sort of bobble head toy shaped like a bird that she just loved. Birds seem to like things that look like birds, so I thought she would like the mirror. She slept on the swing all night and when I uncovered her cage for the morning a little while ago, she started alternating between moving the mirror around with her beak and preening her feathers. I like to imagine she actually understands what the mirror does, instead of thinking it's another bird, and is using it to check her appearance. Funnily enough, she started doing this after I called her a "pretty bird".

Edit: Oooh I just got her to chirp a few times by playing some parakeet sounds on my laptop!

 

I spent most of the day trying to do some cleaning, so I moved Piper's cage into the kitchen for a while so it wouldn't be in the way and I wouldn't startle her by moving things around. I would go check on her occasionally, but whenever I was out of the room for an extended length of time, she would chirp loudly until I went to check on her. When I walked into the room she would tweet a little more quietly. I guess she was trying to get my attention.

So Piper's been pretty vocal today and spent a good amount of time grooming earlier. She even ate some of the seeds from the seed spray, but she hasn't gone near her food or water bowls yet. Even so, everything else seems to suggest she's fairly well settled in by now. She's moving around her cage pretty easily now. I did move some things around though to make it easier. Her swing is closer to the center of the cage now so it doesn't get stuck between the bars, which is something I noticed had happened this morning, and it's easier for her to climb onto it now. Piper seems to have designated each area of her cage for something specific. The lower perch is mostly for grooming, the upper perch is where she stands when she wants attention, probably because it's closer to my eye level, and she sits on her swing when tired or just wanting to relax.

My dog tried to get at her a couple of times again. She would run towards the cage whenever Piper became more active, but would always leave it alone when I scolded her. Piper would normally be distracted from whatever she was doing whenever my dog did this. Once I thought she was about to go eat too. I'm sure my dog will calm down soon, so they just need more time to get used to each other.

 

I was so tired from cleaning yesterday that I forgot to post anything.

I can safely say that Piper is fully settled in by this point. I noticed she was sleeping standing on one foot yesterday, meaning that she feels pretty comfortable. She's been a hyper little thing ever since yesterday, chirping, bobbing her head, and running/climbing all over her cage. Let me tell you some of the things this silly little bird has done. Piper loves hanging upside-down from the top of her cage, sometimes by one foot. I thought it was funny when she accidentally did that when she messed up jumping onto her swing for the first time, but now she does it constantly. She loves playing with her swing too, sometimes even standing on top of it, somehow, instead of on the perch. She likes playing with the mirror but hardly ever gives the spinning toy any attention. For some reason, she likes scratching her face on the corners of her swing. I read that sometimes parakeets will rub their beaks on things as a way to show possession of something or establish their territory, so I'm guessing that's what she's doing.

Piper also seemed to notice my dog for the first time. I thought she had before, but yesterday she flew down to the bottom of her cage, walked up to the cage door, and turned her head around staring at my dog. I'll say it again, this bird is fearless.

By now, I think Piper has learned her name and this morning I started with training her. It was difficult at first because of how hyper she's been. At first I thought she was just suddenly scared of my hand for some reason, but after a while she just calmed down and let me pet her as usual. I think tomorrow I might see if she wants to come out of her cage, (with the door close of course so my dog can't get her) because of how hyper she's been an the fact that she keeps flapping her wings like she's trying to fly, but knows there's not enough room.

So I'm starting off with trying to teach her to step up on my finger. I started off using a pencil sort of as a perch in place of my finger, just in case she tried biting. She actually took to it pretty well, so I think I'll try getting her to step onto my finger in a couple of days. I got her to step up onto it 4 times and even moved her from her swing to the upper perch and got her to step down onto the perch. I've also noticed that the way she was chirping just a few minutes ago sounded like she was trying to vocalize. I think Piper's still a long way off from being able to speak, but I do think there's a possibility that she will be able to. It's probably going to be one of the more common things I say to/around her; either "hello," "good morning," "pretty bird," "silly bird," "good birdy," "no" (to the dog), my dog's name, her own name, or "what are you doing." Probably not that last one since it's so long. She seems to be responding most to "hello" and to her name so far.

 

Hey! So I haven't updated this in a while. The little birdy's still doing well. She's very happy and vocal. The name Piper seems to suit her well. I might have said that before, I'm not sure, but if I did it's still true. I haven't progressed to getting her to step onto my hand yet since I hurt it and I didn't want her pecking the scabs or anything, but shes gotten pretty good at doing it with a perch.

I was worried for a little while because she still wasn't eating or drinking anything, but she wasn't acting sick so I wasn't sure why. I did a google search and apparently really young birds only know to get their food on the ground. Thinking back, I remembered the cage at the store had the food bowls on the floor of the cage. So I moved her food bowl to the bottom of her cage and she figured it out within minutes. Another problem was that the bowls are clear and each has a sort of hood that keeps seeds and water from spilling everywhere, so she kept trying to eat through the plastic and couldn't find where the opening was. I took the hoods off and she didn't have any issues. After a while when she knew where to find the food, I moved the bowls back to their proper places and she hasn't had any more issues since. I tried putting the tops back onto the bowls, but it always confuses her, so I have to leave them off. So much for avoiding a mess.

She's calmed down a lot over the last couple of days too. She doesn't climb all over her cage and hang upside-down from the ceiling like she did before. I guess she was just exploring before. Well she's going to have something to be excited about today. I've noticed that she's had trouble getting form the upper perch down to the lower perch, so I'm going to go get her a ladder. I'd like to get something for her to chew on too, probably a cuttlebone, because she's started chewing on her perches. my first bird chewed on her perches until they snapped in half, so I'd like to prevent that if I can. I don't want Piper swallowing splinters or anything either.

This morning I noticed a feather was sticking up on her head. It looked like she had a bad case of bed head, it was so funny. But then she started flapping her wings and a ton of little feathers went everywhere. Oh good, she's molting. I see some larger feathers growing in, especially around her face, so I guess she still has a little baby down. Or maybe it's just the sudden change in weather. It's gotten a lot colder over the past couple of days.

 

So here's another little update. I know these aren't as frequent as before, but not as much is happening at this point. I got Piper a ladder and a cuttlebone like I said I would. She likes the ladder, but pretty much as soon as I got it she figured out how to get down on her own, so she doesn't use it as much as I expected. I tried putting a seed spray at the top of it to give her a reason to climb it, since it actually extends further up passed the upper perch, but she only nibbled on it a few times before she ignored it completely. It might be old so she might not want it anymore. I'll try switching it out with a fresh one later to see if she eats from it then. The cuttlebones I found were flavored ones; one was orange and the other was vanilla. I wasn't sure if she would like it flavored, but those were the only ones the store had aside from some bigger ones probably meant for large parrots. Right now I just have the orange one in her cage. She seems to like it, although a lot of the time she just likes biting at the metal wire holding it in place. I think she just really likes shiny things. I noticed a few times if I moved my watch around, she would follow it with her eyes. When I took it off to experiment, it was obvious that what she was watching was the shiny metal clasp.

The funniest thing about getting her new cage fixtures was when I first came home. That was the first time I had really been gone for an extended length of time since I first got her. I'm almost always sitting at my desk directly next to her cage. When I left to go to the pet store, I closed my door just in case my dog started to get any ideas. She's been pretty good about leaving Piper alone, but I just wanted to be careful. When I came home and opened the door, she started tweeting and jumped onto the front bars of her cage. It was so cute, she actually missed me!

Training hasn't been going as well as I would like. She just doesn't like sitting on my finger. She'll let me pet her without trying to avoid me now though, and even sometimes starts squawking and flapping her wings if she wants me to pet her. I found out, and I have no idea why this is, that she likes it when I make a sound by clicking my tongue. Before she would get antsy and not want to be touched all the time, but then one day I started clicking my tongue like that and she just immediately calmed down. So now she likes to be petted, but won't step onto my finger very regularly. If I use something like a pencil or something relatively perch-like though, she's perfectly fine. I wonder if it might have to do with my hand shaking slightly when she's perched on my finger. I have no clue. I guess as long as I can get her to step up onto something, it doesn't really matter.

 

Wow the last time I posted here was nearly 2 months ago.

Piper's been doing well. She finally figured out how to use her food and water bowls with the covers on them, so seeds aren't getting everywhere anymore, which is nice. I moved around some of the stuff in her cage and she seems to prefer it the way it is now to to the way it was the last time I posted. She's seemed kind of bored lately though, so I'm wondering if she needs some toys or something. She seems to like shiny things a lot more than colorful things, so maybe I'll try to find something like that.

I think she's starting to go through a sort of "teething" faze because she just wants to bite and chew on everything, including my fingers. She hasn't bitten me hard, but likes to sit on my hand and sort of peck at my fingers. I guess they're more like "love bites" or "kisses" I'm not sure, but at least her cuttlebone has been getting some use lately. Strangely, as far as sitting on my hand goes, she's kind of reversed her preferences from last time I posted. While before she liked being pet and didn't want to sit on my hand, now she doesn't want to be pet as often, but jumps up onto my finger as soon as i get close to her.

I've also learned that she likes classical music a lot. Sometimes if I have to go somewhere and she gets upset, I'll just put on pandora and let her listen to music while I'm doing other things. She likes when I sing too, although I don't know a lot of songs by heart since I haven't been in a choir or anything for a long time. For whatever reason her favorite song that I sing to her is the dragonborn song from Skyrim? I think she prefers songs in a lower pitch, which is kind of surprising since her chirps are more high pitched.

Right now she's being weird and trying to eat water droplets through the cover on her water bowl. And intentionally dropping seeds into her water to see what happens, from the looks of it. Like, actually going out of her way to carry seeds from her food bowl over to her water bowl, and dropping them in. What a mess. Yeah, this definitely seems to be some sort of toddler phase.

Spoiler: another pic, uploaded to discord a while ago, taken on a terrible phone camera

Her nose looks more pink than it actually is. It's still pretty much white with a little pale blue and a small amount of pink.

 

I left for about 3 days to visit some friends and when I got back, Piper was acting a little lethargic. After I sat down at my desk and whistled to her a few times, she perked up a bit and went to eat. I never saw her eat so much before, so I worried that she hadn't eaten at all since I left. Today, she's extremely hyper. I haven't seen her this hyper in a long time, if ever. I guess she really didn't like me leaving her behind, but is happy now that I'm back.

I've noticed recently a sort of pale pink color at the base of her cere, though most of it's still white, so I think it's pretty safe to say for sure now that she is a female. Although, looking up some behavioral information on parakeets, the males are more likely to be vocal and bob their heads the way she does, so I guess she's a bit of a tomboy. Well, that makes two of us, I guess! Males tend to learn to talk quicker, so hopefully that applies to her too.