Isabelle and Ellie: The Great Rivalry

This is the most sweet and innocent picture of Ellie you will ever see. A being of the heavenly realms, angel material, living among us.

It took twenty-five pictures to get this shot. Most of them look more diabolical, like this, as she tries to rip apart her 0 like a deranged feathered beast-monster
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Ellie never stops moving, never stops plotting, and most particularly she likes to pinch things. So she plots to pinch things. Everything. Humans, birds, foam zeroes, our beloved and saintly house keeper, who claims she is worse than a child. She does not pinch my mom, Grandma, whom she worships, and she does not pinch Lily, who is the size of my thumb, and yet inspired Ellie into upright sisterly behavior by chasing her across the counter one day when Ellie roamed onto Lily's radar.

Ellie likes to pinch things just to see what would happen. They aren't malicious pinches--she never draws blood. They're little pinches.

One winter day, Ellie darted away from me and tried to pinch Isabelle. She was unsuccessful, Isabelle and I were both mortified, we both recovered quickly and I grabbed the tiny truant in time.

The household discovered that Isabelle, the sweetest and most tender baby cockatoo on earth, can hold a grudge with the best of them. This came as a shock to Ellie, who is used to being chastised and then kissed and patted off to play elsewhere.

Instead, since Ellie had tried to pinch her, Isabelle wanted to pinch her back and I have never seen a more sober, more penitent version of Ellie than as the weeks that followed. She grew circumspect, vigilant, and pathetically sad to discover that pinching living things has consequences beyond time-out on a different play stand. I tried to distract her from her unhappiness with new foraging toys and lots of trick training. But Isabelle wouldn't forgive her, and Ellie seemed depressed.

A few times, Ellie sought Isabelle out for a truce. We both held our breath as she sidled up to her, and each time, Isabelle made clear her still-vengeful intentions, shaking her head angrily.

Really, I thought, concluding my Umbrella Cockatoo daughter may be the most dramatic parrot on earth. It's been four months. 

For my part, I spent months reading to both girls every morning, doling out treats for their peaceful interludes, so that they'd have to sit in some proximity to one another without violence. It semi-worked:  I became a sort of Switzerland, no bloodshed on Mom. My mom, Grandma, sent us her favorite children's books to contribute to the efforts of Mission: Impossible Operation Friendship.

And then one day last month while I was cleaning the garden room, Ellie on my shoulder and Isabelle playing next to us, Ellie hopped over to Isabelle and nothing happened. Nada. Like they were besties.

I stared at Ellie and said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing here? Why don't you come back over to me?" I offered my hand so she could hop back, but she didn't; she just hung out there. And Isabelle hung out too. For a ridiculously long time.

So I don't know if they had a chat earlier that week and nobody told me about it, or how they came to a truce, but peace was (somewhat*) forged in our little bird home.

*My cute birdies never play together without close supervision because, you know, giant pterodactyl beaks and unpredictable tempers...