Poor Romeo

My 10 year old cockatiel died yesterday, and it was sadder than I thought it would be. She (yes she--surprise!) had been acting sick for at least a couple of weeks now, and yesterday was a bad day. I think my mom saw it first when Romeo lost her balance one day after Brian was born and took awhile to regain it. Then it started happening more lately. I would realize that she would fly to me and would breathe really hard, like she had flown a lot farther than she did. There were other times when she would land, but not on her feet. A couple of nights ago, I actually stayed in the living room with her on me, because I wasn't sure if she would make it through the night.
Yesterday was hard, because I just knew she wasn't going to live much longer. Kayleigh was excited to leave for our trip down to St Pete, and she was hard to deal with while I worried about the bird. I had put the bird down to take care of Brian, and when I went to check on her one time, she was no longer with us. :( That's hard to explain to a 2 year old, let me tell you! One of Kayleigh's fish died recently, and we flushed it down the toilet. I was using that as an example to talk about Romeo dying, and you should have seen the look she gave me as she asked, "We're going to flush the bird down the toilet??" Then I told her we would dig a hole. I think she thought it would be fun to bury the bird, because she couldn't wait to do it. I had to wait for Erik to get home from work to let him do that, though.
Sad times, but now we have some fun to look forward to with the fam!