The Cockatoo

Well, my husband and I joke about it, but our son, Carter, is accident prone. He is an adventurous boy with a serious case of curiosity. Ryan was gone this weekend on a backpacking trip, and I spent each day with parents and in-laws, trying to pass the time more quickly.

On Saturday, we took Carter to the San Juan Capistrano Zoomar petting zoo with my parents, my younger sister, Christa, her hubby and her kids. It was delightful. The minute we got there, Carter yelled, "mow-ney! mow-ney!" (translated pony). He loves to take the pony rides and jumps up and down until it is his turn. Of course, the minute he gets on the horse, he becomes stoic and serious, to the point of no responses or smiles. You can see this in the picture.

He also adores the choo-choo train they have there. Again, he yells, "choo-choo," until I march him over to the line, but his face turns deadpan serious in concentration once he perches in one of the train cars. He gets to ride by himself, which I think is exciting for him. It's hard to tell by his expression.

Anyway, the story begins at the end. We were close to leaving, when I took Carter for a quick look at the birds. He loves birds. We got to the Cockatoo cage, where he quickly pointed at the bird, sticking the end of his left pointer finger a few centimeters into the mesh cage. Before I could react, the aforementioned Cockatoo had firmly grabbed Carter's finger in his beak and had no intention of letting go. I was helpless and could not get past the mesh cage to confront the bird. Carter just had shock on his face and didn't make a peep. As I watched the beak sink deeper into his nail and finger, I decided I had to intervene. I grabbed his finger and yanked it out of the bird's beak, taking the top half of his nail with it and much of the skin off the top of his finger. As soon as the finger was free, the screams began.

I was a mess--emotionally teary eyed and covered in blood from the finger he wouldn't let us touch. We were able to wash it and dab some Neosporin on the wound. It looked fairly bad. Carter was puffy faced from screaming and crying for about twenty minutes, and his shirt had blood from the finger he held in the air like an Olympic torch. It was not fun.

After much deliberation, we skipped the Urgent Care and watched the finger closely for infection. It healed very quickly, and he has a nice scab covering the wound now. The lessons I learned were never trust a petting zoo (we found out later the bird bites a lot, and there is no sign), be faster than a Cockatoo and always have a first aid kit on hand when Carter is your son. Oh, the stories I'll have to tell him when he is older . . .