Yesterday was Presto’s 5th birthday, can you guys even believe it? I’m convinced that the first 3 years of a horse’s life take a decade to pass, and then after that every year is like 3 months long. Maths and time don’t make sense. Five. FIVE! He’s a real boy now. Well… ok… as real as Presto could possibly ever be.

I couldn’t be with him on his birthday, since he’s way up in Midland “resting” (ha), but I could make sure that he still had a banging birthday party, so I got on Amazon and ordered a few things to send to Michelle. What was the theme of this party, you ask? What other possible theme could there be?

He got an outfit, an inflatable bop-it, a banner, and a pinata, along with a bag of treats to put in said pinata. If there’s one thing we know about Presto, it’s that he loves murdering things with his mouth and feet, thus I figured that stuff was right up his alley.

So, step 1 for throwing a Presto party: you gotta decorate. It helps set the tone, ya know?

Step 2: get dressed. Gotta have just the right outfit. And if you don’t have thumbs you may require some outside assistance.

Step 3: Revel in the majesty of yourself and how you look in all of your chic birthday glory.

Step 4: Invite some friends over for your party.

Step 5: As birthday boy, your next priority should always be your presents. Presto’s attention went to the bop-it first, since it was bigger, but he was honestly pretty unimpressed with that. It occurs to me that perhaps I have set the bar a little too high with what is now required to actually captivate Presto’s attention.

It took him a minute to figure out that the real treasure lay inside the piñata. And when I say “took him a minute” I mean that quite literally… from the moment he first saw the piñata to the moment he managed to bust it open and get the treats out was 1 minute 16 seconds. Honestly that’s about 30 seconds longer than I anticipated. He kept trying to roll it like his old treat ball, expecting it to spit out a cookie with each shove. Took him a beat to figure out that further violence was required for this particular item, which he was then quite pleased to dole out.

Once he got to the good stuff his attention was solidly focused on eating on the giraffe guts. Er, horse treats. Honestly a bit of a boring party for him, given his history. I expected a little more fanfare… a little more giraffe murder. Maybe he’s actually growing up a little bit?

In all seriousness though, yes I do go a bit overboard with the silliness on his birthdays, but it’s because we came so precariously close to never getting to celebrate any at all. Every year I still vividly remember that sad little sick foal that almost died more times than I can count, and every year I’m grateful all over again that he made it through. Even when he’s a dumb giraffe that can’t keep his chaos feet to himself and manages to bruise his P2 and spend all my money on MRIs. Indeed, even then.

How boring would life be without a Presto in it?