Making huge progress with Tiki, reposting from Conure section

[Lori L]

Hi all, just thought I'd let you know that I am making HUGE progress with Tiki. I have posted before that she doesn't come out from her cage even though I leave it open everyday all day. Well little by little she's been following me around from within her cage. I've been tickling her stomach, touching her beak etc though the bars. Then I've been asking her to come down to a particular perch by tapping it with my finger and say, "come on, come here". At first she wouldn't and now she does right away. But then when I'd ask her to step up she'd climb away. Then today and tonight she was practically begging for me. I could tell and she'd lift one leg as though she wanted to step up. And so she did. She's also been beaking me alot. No pressure just very interested in my fingers. I let her experiment and say no bite, good girl. Even though she is putting no pressure I hope I'm not teaching her it's ok to bite me. I'm hoping that by letting her do this she will learn that she can beak me but not bite me. And then the most wonderful thing happened. As I stood talking to her as she was on her playstand, cocking her head with every word I spoke, reacting and truly being interested in me, I felt the beginnings of falling in love with her. Anyone who has a child knows what I'm talking about. You have a baby and you go into automatic mommy mode. Cleaning, feeding, etc, with an infant. You love them but you are not "in love" with this child. After all the child (infant) has no personality, is non-responsive etc. And then one day it all clicks, you feel this overwhelming love for this being. Some people it takes longer, some within a few hours of giving birth. For me with my son it was the next day...I remember the moment, in the middle of the night in the hospital when he woke crying and the nurse hadn't swaddled him enough and his little hat was not on. I swooped down like a big mama bird and picked up my frozen child and held him. It was at that moment I felt the bond. Well this feeling that I have now (as you can probably tell) is something like that. Sorry for getting all sappy on you but I'm thrilled. I know you all know what I mean.