Why I call my daughter a 'little bird'

My daughter was born just shy of 6lbs.  A tiny little thing. She never wanted to be swaddled, and when she'd lay next to me and breastfeed she'd spread out her arms and legs and she looked like a little newborn bird in a nest being fed.  I thought of her as a little bird.  In my native country calling someone a little bird is a term of endearment.  So I've been calling her little bird, sometime in English, sometime in Macedonian.  'Malo pile'.

I recently introduced my little bird to sunflower seeds.  I love sunflower seeds.  I especially like to have a bag on a long road trip.  It keeps me awake if I a am the one driving.  Today on our way to the park I realized I had a half eaten bag in the glove compartment of my car.  I brought them out and was eating them, sitting in a bench in the park while the kids were playing.

Maggie kept running to me and asking for some.  I was shelling them for her, but she'd also try to eat them with shells on it and then she'd try to spit.  I tried to teach her how to take the shell out and eat the seed inside.

And so my little bird and I were eating sunflower seeds, sitting under the shade of a tree in the park down on Knox Street.