Giant Bird's Giant Beak Owie

Yesterday, Giant Bird bit down too hard on a metal broomstick and broke off the tip of his beak, leaving a bloody little tag-end of tissue and nerves hanging out. It was awful! To make matters worse, our regular avian vet was out of the office for a week, so we ended up going to a vet in Wallingford who I had heard good things about (they turned out to be accurate good things). She managed to towel Giant Bird without him objecting at all, then put tissue glue on the sore spots to seal them up and Dremeled down the sharp ragged edges. Through this all, Giant Bird only bucked three or four times--usually he protests getting towelled intensely. He felt much better afterward, and I got som Celebrex (turns out to be about the best painkiller for birds, not so good for humans) and the vet's favorite herbal anti-feather-plucking stuff. Disaster solved. Giant Bird is going to be eating soft warm foods for a couple of days, and the tip of his beak is still a bit sore, but he's doing much better.

Here are some pictures of the kids' time with me:

They insisted on going to the beach, even though it was not warm. Instead of going in the water, they just buried each other in the sand. Here's a pic of my boyfriend and Beloved Eldest burying Beloved Youngest: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/tuckerestron/beach420.jpg

Here is Beloved Eldest buried in the sand: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/tuckerestron/qburied2.jpg

And here are both the kids having their wrestling match refereed by Giant Bird: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/tuckerestron/monkeys002.jpg