There’s no pressure to pick out the most thoughtful/clever/impactful card that echoes just the right amount of sincerity and light heartedness. He can’t read.

Re-gifting is not just acceptable, but encouraged. He already loves things that smell like me (yes, I know that sounds weird), so gifting him an old sweatshirt that someone gave me five years ago would be wonderful to him.

I don’t ever have to deal with gift receipts – remembering to ask for them, making sure I tape them to the back of the ever-so-clever card I found. Not having thumbs makes it hard to return things, let alone drive himself there.

He’s never mad if I forget… since he doesn’t even know what day of the week it is. Ever.

He doesn’t have a Facebook account so I don’t need to spend any time thinking of a unique way to type ‘Happy birthday’ with the right arrangement of emoji’s.

There is zero pressure to pick out just the right thing to give him. He thinks ice cubes are the most amazing things ever, so whatever I wrap a bow around and make a presentation of blows his cute little dog mind.

I love the fun twist of celebrating both human years and dog years.

Happy birthday Nix – you’re 4 years old today! AND 28!