I think he loves me.

I'm a little concerned about Kai's weight...because he weighed 275 grams on my certificate from Mr. Lewis, but when I weighed him today on his brand new scale, he only weighed 241 grams.  I'm not sure if it's because he's getting so much exercise now and he has a bigger environment to play in, or if it's due to illness.  His vet appointment is coming up this Thursday, so I'm going to have him thoroughly checked out.  He's very active, playful, eats very well, drinks plenty (and dunks his almonds to make a mess), and only really whines when he wants to go to sleep.  I guess we'll find out soon!  I hope he's not ill!  

Kai loves to sit on the faucet when I prepare dinner.

The faucet head turns so he can get a drink from "the fountain"

My dog, on the other hand...has been throwing up red chunks of something the past two days.  I noticed that when I came downstairs, my husband must not have latched my door, because Sacha was in my room for who knows how long.  Basically the door from the foyer opens, then swings shut due to my lopsided old house, so Sacha and cats can come in, but they can't exit.  I noticed that Kai doesn't really care for the red pellets, so I'm guessing that as he tosses them out, Sacha has been eating them.  Thus......red barf.  Argh...!  It's no big deal, really, unless the pellets have something bad in them.  My searches turned up raisin/garlic/onion-free, but I'll have to see what Mr. Lewis says.  My poor baby dog has such a sensitive stomach, and he's quite finicky - he absolutely hates the new flavour of organic wet dog food we bought for him and went on a hunger strike the past two nights.  I thought it was odd that he ate the steamed carrots, brocolli, and squash I made for him, though.  I only realized it was the wet food, because he finally crawled over to me and gave me his pitiful "I'm so hungry..." look, so I got him a bowl of his kibbles and he snarfed that up.

 

Z....z....z....

In an amazing first-time occasion tonight, I realized that Kai really does care about me :) I had read that parrots don't *want* to poop on you, but this was proven tonight. Hubby, cats, Sacha, and I were on the couch watching Lost, and I had Kai on my thigh. He ruffled up and wiggled his tail, which signaled to me that he had to poop...but before I could get him to step up, he backed up to the very edge of the towel and pooped.

On the side of my knee cap...

Now, I know he meant to miss me, but my muscle tapered down a little too much for him to walk all the way down to the very edge. When he was done, he walked right back up my thigh and settled down against my arm again quite relieved!  I could see it on his face.  He looked so pleased with himself, and I was trying not to die of laughter to spare his pride.

As gross as it was to be pooped on, it was horribly endearing! I ltold him what a good boy he was (and hubby made a face and said his usual ew's).  I've dealt with poop almost every day of my life - from horse to cow, pig to sheep, chicken to peacock, degu to mouse, king snakes to prehensile tail skinks, arowana to Columbian tegu,  even Australian stick insects and crickets, which fed my assorted reptiles - so a little bird poop isn't going to kill me.

Sacha likes to wait for handouts under Kai's house.
You can tell by the crumbs on his head...

I talk to Kai every day quite a bit, and he knows quite a few things, though he doesn't say them all the time. I'm trying to teach him QQ, which is a nerdy sort of emoticon in gamer language (I play World of Warcraft *nerdsnort*). The Q's represent eyes with teardrops...so if something sad happens (actually or jokingly), someone will say/type "QQ", or "Q.Q"

Thursday evening, Peaches came over and had dinner with us, but while dinner was cooking (with Hubby in charge of finishing up - I was so proud of him, he made everything perfectly!) we went out to visit Mr. Lewis and crew at Birds Unlimited.  I tried very hard to remember what I needed, which mostly just translated into: more toys....I came back with a small, nifty table stand, which is a lot smaller and less unwieldy than his dinner stand and his play gym next to my desk.

The new stand looks like this.  It's really nice, because it has two food bowls, plus nicely sized diameters for perchs in addition to little ladders.

I also picked out some great new toys and a new grapevine perch for Kai, which I extended outside of the cage instead of inside it.  Kai can be very close to me this way, which he loves, and I can give him treats and talk to him without him actually being on me. 

He's become much stronger and more coordinated now that I've set his cage up with many perches and toys to play on. I watch him very carefully with the tearable straw rings, because I've seen him use them like ladders, and sometimes he gets his foot stuck in one. I think in the future, I'll just get the straw balls. His newest joy is climbing down the chains of tearable straw rings, then hanging upside down from them. It's absolutely adorable and hilarious. The first time he did it, I panicked and thought he got his foot caught, but he turned his head to look at me, then I started laughing. Kai thought it was great fun and just hung there staring at the world upside down for nearly three minutes.

He's SO cute!  

"I'm entranced with your light meter..."

Pistachio time!  "Chio!" 

I stuff his ballies with treats and hang them from various places so he has to forage for them :)

I'm trying to find places that sell the vine balls in bulk, but I'm not having much luck.  If anyone knows of places that have them, please comment with a link!  Thank you so much!