Backyard Birds

This isn't really school related at all.

Last night, I thought I saw a blue colored bird in our tree out the living room window {the window actually looks out to the back yard} so I went to investigate. Didn't see anything, but I started thinking that the birds were being pretty noisy. Then I saw this guy:

So a little background - a few years ago, my dog was outside and I looked out and noticed these birds were dive bombing her! So I went out to  see what was going on. Well, my loving dog had thought she'd made a new friend. She'd found a baby birdy! {don't worry, this story has a happy ending!} There was this fledgling bird who was apparently taking the big first flight, and instead, ended up sort of fly-hopping along my yard, chased - no I think I should say, followed by my dog, who was being chased by the parent birds. I grabbed my dog's fur with both hands and hauled her into the house. {Which was a bit interesting, because she's like 60 pounds!} And then I watched out the window as the baby bird finally got on the low branch of a bush. The parent birds started doing a low flying swoop around the baby bird, as if to say, "Come on, you can do it. This is how." It was rather fun to watch. The baby bird eventually fluttered up to a higher branch on a tree. And eventually flew away.

Now back to last night - I looked over and saw about 3 birds on my fence and 3 more birds on this black thing I have in my yard. Then I saw some birds doing that low flying swoop and I started looking - and realized this guy was probably on his first flight. I called my hubby out and we watched for awhile. A long while. Then we went inside. And about 5 minutes later, my hubby looked outside and this guy was gone.

But now, I am realizing, I can connect this to school. I want to be like those parent birds. I don't want to do all the work for my kids. I don't want to push them before they are ready. But I DO want to swoop beside them and say, "Yes, you CAN do this. Come on, try!"