Our new family member

The patter of tiny feet once again graces the Titasey home.  We watch in wonder as she, our new family member negotiates floor boards and tiles and feet threatening to knock her sideways.

She's a girl who loves her tucker. I swear she has grown a centimetre since Seffy adopted her.

     She is Pepper, a Pekin-Indian Runner cross duckling who is now two weeks old.  Seffy has adopted her and I am the occasional duck-sitter.  Being a newborn, she requires constant care and attention and will not tolerate being locked in a cage like Quentin, our quail (that’s another story). 

     Pepper likes to be held and cooed to and if she is left alone in a box or with Quentin she chirps just like a baby chicken who can’t find its mother.

     At night, Pepper is swaddled like a baby human and nestled into a sheet-lined box to simulate being sat upon by her mother.  At just two weeks of age she is already sleeping through the night.  Clever duck!

     I’ve had tonsillitis since she arrived and our morning ritual is this: when I am woken by the pain of being slowly strangled at around four, I get up and swallow some pain relief.  Then I take Pepper from her cot and give her a feed while the painkillers kick in.  When she is sleepy eyed and sated, I swaddle her up again and she sleeps till Seffy wakes at about seven.

    In just four days, Seffy and I have managed our routines to include Pepper being doted upon ALL the time.  Either she is swaddled and tucked under Seffy’s singlet or mine. 

Or being serenaded with Hot Cross Buns and Incey Wincey Spider

      Today I discovered what happens when swaddling is not applied properly.  Pepper had been down my singlet while Seffy did some drawing and then I handed her back.  About half an hour later something didn’t feel right in my t-shirt bra.  I reached down and produced three moist tablet-sized objects, the colour and texture of wet grass.  Aaagh, I thought (not wanting to alarm others around me), it’s ducky do.  Thank heavens I hadn’t tried to pick them up earlier.  Duck poo is notoriously runny.

     I’ve finally found a way to get Pepper off my chest when I am working at the computer.

Pepper needs the feeling of warm skin.

     There will come a time when Pepper needs to stay home alone.  Seffy and I have some concerns.  Last night we were all downstairs and Tony heard footsteps upstairs.  I told him it was "just one of the kids" except all the kids were on the patio.

     “It’s the dog,” he said and marched upstairs.

     Sure enough, our very clever foster dog, Diesel, had managed to nose the back door open and proceed to terrorise Quentin in his cage. Poor Quentin.  He's already a nervy guy.

     Seffy and I have started the separation process, but every time we move from Pepper’s vision, she chirps in such a desperate, heart-wrenching way, my eyes fill with tears.  It’s exactly the raw emotion I felt the first few times I abandoned my babies at childcare … till the euphoria of spending time-alone kicked in.