CaspersRose

No, no, I CAN reach it! It's... just... here... at the bottom of the... bath... I can get it, I can get it... ... ... I... can... ... ... no, I can't get it... hrmph!

:hap:

When you think about all the ramifications which could arise from poor hearing for a kid (speech and language, learning to read and spell, just everyday classroom routines, behaviour etc to name just a few) you can never be overcautious I recon (but that could be the sppech and language pathologist in me!). To be frank, a hearing test is a small price to pay to hear the good news that there are no problems, and a worthwhile price to pay to hear that there are! So glad you were able to get on to it and have a team of people who are going to be able to get it sorted out for you! Good luck with it all!

it is so great that you managed to get on to it at this stage though... many kids start school with similar problems which are not picked up until their learning is significantly impaired by the fact that they can't hear what they're being taught, or even worse, are labelled the "naughty kid" because they're always continuing to do the wrong thing when the teacher asks them to stop simply because they don't hear the teacher until he or she is yelling at them!

Your puppies are so adorable, Elly! The photos and your captions really show their personalities! As for the snow... it would be especially welcome down this way at the moment, especially for the Victorians and South Australians... poor things are putting up with temps in the mid 40s this week!

Thanls for the suggestions AV... I will try the mirror option...he has one which we let him play with/talk to when he is outside his cage on his playgym. I might move it inside he cage and see how he goes. He does have a few shiny things (silver bells and a kind of frosted mirror thing which reflects light but doesn't show his own refelction) so I might jsut rearrage the furniture (he loves to explore teh new arrangements when I do that after a big cage clean), add in his outside mirror and get his hanging see block. Hopefully the changes will keep him occupied for a fair chunk of time and I can rest easy in the knowledge that he isn't just sitting there by himself!

Thanks everyone for your wishes... He is a thousand times better today (admittedly, I had only seen him in the hour straight after his surgery, so he was never going to be great then!). The physio got him up and walking today and gave him the all clear to wander around the ward whenever he feels he needs to get up and stretch his legs. Had a few visitors today, but they staggered themselves out which was goos because after each lot he got so tired and slept for an hour or so before the next lot. Dressings and massive head bandage should come off tomorrow afternoon... it's really tight to stop the swelling and he's been quite uncomfortable so it will be nice to have it off. That said, we're going to plan a visit to the hospital hairdresser to have the rest of his hair cut super short as we have discovered the surgeon only shaved the area he needed to operate on and Dave has decided no hair is better than patchy hair! So there's still a way to go, but from the looks and sounds of things, the worst is over. The nurses said that he might get a bit more pain over the next few days as the super pain killers are gradually reduced, but that's fine... pain=having made it through in Dave's book. Anyway, on a different note... I got home this evening and poor little Smokey looked so forlorn and lonely. I have let him stay up late tonight with me while i watch the tennis on tv and he is chatting away now. Tomorrow is meant to be a bit cooler (as opposed to today - forty something and a wind chill factor of forty something plus!), so I might be able to leave a window open for him to hear the outside noises (one of his favourite sounds). I always leave him with the radio, but feel so guilty leaving him at home on his own for ten or twelve hours at a time. He loves those seed stick things, so i thought I'd get on of them for him to chew on, hang off, talk to etc etc (he does all of those things... who needs toys when you can chat with your food?). I might see if mum and dad can babysit him later in the week, but for now, does anyone have any ideas on how to aleviate some of his loneliness?

That's okay Elly! Thank you for your thoughts! Poor little Smokey has been a bit of a Lonely Child over the last few days, as I have been at the hospital from earlyish in the morning and not getting home til after dark... I have the TV going now (will be heading off in about an hour) and he's chatting up a storm! Hopefully the radio has been company enough for him while I've been out! I have been a bt worried about how warm it has been getting inside the unit during the day, a s it is all shut up while I'm out so have a fan set on timer to go on and off every now and then jsut to get the air moving.

never painted a budgie... in either context! When was the last time you had a MASSIVE family get together?

Hi all... it seems like ages ago that i wrote the original post in this topic! Anyway, just letting you know Dave had his surgery today, to remove the tumour. Pre-op scans showed there had been no change since the diagnosis, which was good news. He went down to theatre this afternoon and came out at about 7 this evening. Neurosurgeon said everything went as planned and that he should be out of intensive care by Sunday. When I left him in ICU tonight he was still quite groggy, but was becoming much more coherent and alert as the general anaesthetic started to wear off. Thanks to God!

I managed 27...

wow! I am in the north west of sydney and we had a couple of 40+ days, so i can imagine it was just as bad if not worse out west where you are. I haven't experienced such prolonged periods of hot weather before... a single day here and there over summer (eg new years day 2005) but never three or four consecutive days! I hope for you and your birds' sake (and the rest of us!) that the worst of it is over and the weather starts to settle down! Sorry for your losses... it's terrible when you have done all you can and it still ends up happening

I have been doing a little weather watching project with the kids I work with at Vacation Care because it has been getting so hot here in Sydney of late. We are located about 20km north west of the city of Sydney (slightly inland) and have been comparing the actual temperature at the centre to the temperature reported on the news each night. This week we had two days where the predicted temperature was in the mid to high 30's celcius... the kids measured the actual temperatures to be in the low forties on those days! Very warm! The kids also observed that often when we have days like that, we also have a brief period in the late part of the afternoon where it gets really windy, cools down quickly and sometimes storms. On Thursday this happened at about 5pm. It had been 42 degrees right up until then, then it clouded over, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped 10 degrees, a few flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder, then RAIN like you wouldn't believe it! This only lasted about twenty minutes, then the sun came out again as quickly as it disappeared! Parents of the kids who had been working in the city told us that they had had no rain at all and were surprised to arrive and see everything dripping wet! So that was another thing the kids learnt... not only can the temperature vary enormously from one part of Sydney to the next, so can the rainfall etc!

I'd love to see a picture once it has sprouted! Reading people's aviary-related posts really makes me wish we had a backyard so I could build an aviary!!!!

I love the look on her face, Elly! Classic cat inquisitiveness! Here are the two cats I grew up with: This is Horse. We got her when I was five, and she was put down just last year, as her poor old body just couldn't keep going. She was 22 and was a really dignified old lady! As a kitten she was super fiesty and my little sister and I were always going to school with the trademark cat scratches up our arms and legs! These photos were taken last year when she spent most of the day sleeping (like most old people do!) And this is Benjii. He is 13 years old and likes sitting in boxes! He's a really sooky, clingy cat... very cuddleable!

great! i loved watching them flying in their flocks... so many budgies! It looked like a swarm of bugs!

Absolutely!! Between BBC forums, Facebook and Google, not a lot gets done!

Hehe... i somehow manage to while away hours doing "nothing" on the computer and internet... not sure how but it is often mid afternoon before I realise I've hardly done anything all day!

ooo.. if he started with two, and nature apparently did the rest, how inbred would they have been!!! Where do you find these articles Trish! They're very intriguing!

hehe! :rofl:

We get ours at a store called Game. Prices are pretty good and they seem to have things randomly on sale sometimes up to half the cost of other places... We love WiiFit and have recently got Ramond Raving Rabids TV Party which is pretty fun. Overall though, the Lego games are the best - we have Indianna Jones adn Star Wars... currently saving up for Batman!

Well, I was wandering through the shopping centre today and, as I always do, detoured via the birds in the pet shop. The set-up they have at this place is fairly spacious as far as shop set ups are concerned, and the cages all have perspex fronts so people (kiddies!) can't poke fingers or other things in, and a barred back where the staff access the cages from. Obviously all the different breeds of birds have their own cages. Anyway, I was in today and noticed that the shop guy was cleaning the cages, changing the liners, food, water etc. But I was shocked to observe him use spray and wipe to clean the inside of the perspex on the finches' cage WITH THE FINCHES STILL INSIDE! I don't know about anyone else, but the fumes from cleaning products get to me when I do small areas like the bathroom, so I can't imagine what it's like in a space the size of a cage... let alone with the birds still in it! Wouldn't you think it should be common sense not to use strong smelly things like that in an enclosed space with the birds?!?

Haha! Yeah, Smokey does it too! He hangs upside down and pecks at his dangly toys... It's really funny to turn the pictures upside down... they look just like a budgie standing up!

adorable!!! I loooooovve their little mohawk head spikes!

such a cute photo... looks a bit like what i look like first thing in the morning!