He Just Gets Cuter

Roo now follows me EVERYWHERE and has decided that he is very fond of bounding through the main house shed from the back door through the front door, round the yard and then back through the house again (boing, boing, boing, wheee). I'm so busy interacting with him that I haven't taken any photos! Partly I'm trying not to freak him out with too much new stuff - roos are notoriously sensitive to stress, and he spazzes out if you just cough or make a small movement that he wasn't expecting.

So today I guess he decided that I am his new mum, and will now come up very close and sometimes lets me tickle his neck (touching them can trigger a "predator response", scaring them). He does this unbelievably cute charming thing where he hops up to me, then pokes his nose up towards me - I worked out that the correct response is to lean down and almost touch my nose to his. Gary comes out to see me making a fool of myself pretending to be a kangaroo, crouched down on the ground, digging up grass, making mum call noises, encouraging Roo to look for the right kinds of forage.

He'll wander about on his own for a little while, then sits up and chitters loudly, which means I need to go and let him see and hear me - so he's learning to be independent, but still needs to check if mum's around. Tonight he came into the main shed and sat & ate a pile of grass that I'd collected for him, right next to us on the sofa, calm as anything. Then he tried to eat Honey's wicker bed basket, a DVD and a piece of firewood. Finally he slowed down and I could tell it was bed time - he sits there looking all dopey and droopy, so I go up to him slowly holding out my fuzzy bathrobe in a pouch shape, and he hops right in. Right now he is passed out in our bed, bundled up in the robe, his ears and tail sticking out at the ends.

I hung a pouch bag on the fence in the yard, and he worked out how to get in all by himself - we went over and all we could see was a leg and a tail hanging out the end, lazily twitching in little kangaroo dreams. He is so cute that we don't mind waking up with a little pile of roo poos in the bed.