How to Have a Birthday Party for the Dog

Yesterday was my dog’s first birthday. We actually thought it was this coming Monday (based on our best estimates), but our friend* who got a puppy from the same litter posted her dog’s picture on Facebook and, well, oops.

I’m guessing most people don’t celebrate their dogs’ birthdays. We’re a little odd**. On the one hand, we’re this family who doesn’t put a whole lot of emphasis on whether or not someone remembers an anniversary or buys special presents. But then we’ll go all out and create a treasure hunt for one of the kid’s birthdays or build a 20-foot-long paper maché snake for Chinese New Year. Once, because my son decided it was the car’s birthday, we invited everyone over and had a party for our Honda Pilot (like I said, odd).

They even made a cake for the car. And served sandwiches.

It blows my mind that we’ve had Jasper for ten months. We all get a little sad when we look at pictures of him as a little fuzzball, barking at the stairs because he’s having a hard time walking down them. Or frantically digging up the garden. Or taking his first bath. I feel like we just picked him up a few months ago, and he puked all over Elfie on the car ride home (he still tends to go right next to her whenever he pukes — don’t ask).

Anyway, we’d planned to do something “special” for Jasper’s first birthday. I think salmon and cupcakes were in the works (not salmon cupcakes — salmon AND cupcakes, although I’m sure he’d like the former). But since I found out about his real birthday at 8 p.m. last night, we had to improvise.

Yes. It’s hard to grow up. But as the kids are learning, sometimes it’s even tougher on the ones watching the growing than the ones doing it.

* Special thanks to Veronica for hooking us up with Jasper’s mom. You officially kept me from going off the deep end.

** And yes, I know I talk to my dog like he’s a baby. Go ahead and hate me.

*** You can see the rest of Jasper’s videos here.