All's well that ends well. A story of a teacher's blunder

A few weeks ago, one of my students came into the studio and announced that the egg her budgie had been sitting on had hatched. But as she left the house, she noticed it was covered in blood because the mama had a scratch on her leg.

She wasn't worried, just thought it was gross.

And before you could say, "bite your tongue", I exclaimed, "Oh my, you need to get your bird to the vet immediately. They can't afford to lose much blood".

And went off on a tangent of when one of my love birds got egg bound and I had to rush it to the bird hospital for a couple of days on oxygen. If you ever want to put a nickel in my husband in regards to the "for worse" part of our wedding vows, this particular story usually is brought up.

And as the words came out of my mouth, "Take the bird to the vet!", I wanted to stuff them back in quicker than I can inhale a box of Tim Horton Timbits on a Sunday morning.

What was I thinking?

Clearly I was not thinking as the now blanched 13 year old asked if she could borrow the phone to call her dad to tell him the story of my love bird and that the budgie needed to go to the vet ASAP.

Her father's response was pretty much the same as my husband, "you have got to be kidding me". Fortunately for this dad, the child doesn't have a driver's license yet and so was able to nip the two day oxygen stay at the bird hospital vet bill in the bud, unlike my poor husband.

And like any typical teen who does not get the proper answer from her dad she immediately called her mom, who with reason, research, and a calm demeanor talked her teen off the ledge her art teacher created with an Oscar worthy drama queen performance.

When the student came to the next class, she didn't get two feet in the door before everyone wanted to know how the birds had faired without an expensive vet bill due to a lengthy stay recuperating on pure oxygen. And with an eye roll directed squarely at me that would make any teen proud, she let us all know that everything was fine.

So as the weeks have progressed she has now kept us up to date with pictures, videos, and stories of the baby's development. And this week she came to class so excited because all the feathers were finally in and oh.my.word you have never seen anything cuter in your life.

I had brought out water based oil paint for the teens to try for the first time and I suggested she do a portrait of her baby bird, so she could remember this very exciting time in her life and the ultimate blunder her art teacher made along the way.

She created a beautiful piece to remember my crazy blunder her baby bird by and I'm glad to say all's well that ends well.

13 year old, oil on canvas