Ari's birthday...

You made this video last year."

Yeah... *that's how a birthday works...*

It's late April, so you know what that means!

TAXES!

AND ARI'S BIRTH!

I made a birthday video last year,

but you don't just celebrate a birthday once, when you turn one and then never again.

We'd all forget how old we are... Ari can't count so I'll keep track for him.

You're at 2.

The first few weeks of Ari's arrival are what I like to call:

'Learning

and

Panicking weeks'

You're filled with nothing but love and anxiety. The two most different, yet similar emotions in the world.

Like when you get a new phone and for the first little bit,

you're afraid to even set it down on the counter cause it might get scratched.

But then in a month, you don't care anymore and you just

toss it across rooms.

It's like that,

but with a LIVING BEING.

Once, during the 'learning and panicking weeks',

I was giving Ari some peanut butter on a spoon,

and somehow some peanut butter got stuck in his little nose hole.

I was so paranoid about everything, like what if it's stuck!? What if it gets infected!?

What if it goes into his head and clogs a bird vein and

all he can see is PEANUT BUTTER!?

I freaked myself out and ended up googling;

'How to get peanut out of your bird's nose"

there wasn't any information on the topic

surprisingly... And as I was looking up what the scientific term for bird nostril was...

he sneezed it out.

I've been researching and wanting an Ari since I was 12.

But I'm still learning new things about them all the time. All you out there who have a bird probably definitely

know what I'm gonna get into here.

But I'm gonna enlighten the rest of you about a little bird thing called a 'morning poop'.

This is all learned through personal experience.

Ari was finally starting to warm up to me and

eventually it got to the point where he was comfortable stepping on my finger and playing and stuff so one morning,

I took off the blanket on his cage and said 'good morning', like I always do, I was excited to start the new day and

I let him out onto my bed. He walked around and quacked a bit,

and then took the BIGGEST FREAKING POOP

I'VE EVER SEEN COME OUT OF A BIRD.

What the crap is this Ari!?

What the FRICK?!

There's no possible way a giant mountain poop can even come out of this two once bird child's birdhole.

Ari poops are normally like the size of a fingernail, but this one was like a

spoonful.

Don't try to envision it too much.

'Do birds take giant poops in the

morning, or did he just lay a

poop egg?'

Birds choose not to poop where or while they sleep.

Which means it...

builds up...

during the night...

Depending on the type of bird, they can poop between 15 to up to 40 or 50 times a day, so in the morning, they

just immediately drop 12 hours worth of built-up poop. Which is like 90% ew, but being real,

can you imagine how amazing that must feel?

Just wake up,

take a poop the size of a baby, and start your day feeling light and ready for anything.

Anyway, so that was a learning experience?

And I made a mental note; 'make sure Ari morning poops before being taken out of the cage.

A couple weeks later,

it's the start of a new day. I'm working at my computer and my mum walks in to say good morning...

to Ari.

I wasn't paying too much attention as she took him out of the cage and onto the desk and all of a sudden,

Vietnam flashbacks~

"WAIT DID HE-

Ugh..."

"DID HE JUST POOP ALL HIS GUTS OUT?!"

"No... I forgot to warn you about morning poops."

"What?"

"Can you clean this up?"

"HA!

No. It's your bird!" So that's morning poops 2, us 0. But we haven't striked out yet!

struck out..

Fast forward a month or two,

and I had my parents watch Ari because I was going out of town for a.bit.

Ari was more social back then, so he let my parents pick him up...

He hates everyone now...

I got back and my mum said everything was fine,

except one day, dad took him out into the kitchen while she was eating breakfast, she looked over...

"NO! WAIT, YOU-

Ugh..."

The good thing is, once you learn the hard way, you never forget.

You never forget your first morning poop.

Enough about morning poops...

more birth celebration.

"Is there any aisles you have for that?"

"Well we have birthday aisles..."

Are you ready for a surprise?

Awe... he's scared

I think this is too much for a bird,

but he's my CHILD.

I got a pin, just for you. I think it suits you very much.

I didn't get you a cake, because uhhhh you can't eat it,

so I'm gonna give you a seed ball.

Y'wanna seed ball?

This lighting is HORRIBLE.

He actually hates me.

Wadda ya think!?

There was also like this pig thing, and I though it was really cute, so I got it.

It said to throw it at the wall, so I'm gonna...

Granny also got you a present! Wanna open it?

It's a toy!

He's just gonna try and get all the seeds off the table

Ari knows what's up.

Hah-

this is the only reason he likes me.

AHHHHHHHHH

Happy Birthday Ari!

yey

Obviously, Ari is living the life of luxury here.

But it really sucks because a lot of birds are in really bad homes and are being mistreated.

My heart hurts to think Ari could have ended up with someone who doesn't care of neglects him.

Tiny cage, no toys, broken heart.

No peanut butter to get stuck in his nose.

It's the horrible truth for a lot of birds.

But there's hope for some of them. My friend Anika works at a bird rescue in Tempe

And it takes in birds that owners can't take care of anymore or that are being suffering

I've been to the rescue and besides that the extreme constant bird screaming, it was fun to see all the feather buddies..

There's Murphy, the cookatoo, who's the rescues' mascot and everyone loves him,

and pistachio, the super nice bird friend that helps children and people get comfortable with holding birds.

And this little buddy, Junior, who is rescued from an absolutely horrible household.

He plucked out almost all of his feathers from stress and anxiety of his previous owner.

But is making a great recovery and despite the abuse, still loves people and being the center of attention.

AWWWWW, he's a little chicken. The bird rescue is so great, but since it's based on volunteer work,

it doesn't make much profit on its own. Anika and the owners want to renovate and upgrade the place of it to care for more

birds, and we're hoping to start a fundraiser to help them and I was like

"I want to help save birds because I love them probably more than people!"

So I'm donating $1000 to the rescue and informing you about it as well.

They're such great people doing such great things and I want to support things I believe in

If you want to help out a bunch of Aris, the rescue and many bird friends, we'll be very thankful.

Even if it's something small like a dollar of just sharing it with other people.

Little things like that go a long way with enough teamwork.

My friend Sarah from Simply Sarah Art is super crazy wicked talented and made this awesome spray paint of Ari.

You can go to her channel and see how she made it to prove that she's an absolute

prodigy and she offered to help with the fundraiser and giving one away. Sarah,

how are you so good!?

If you donate at least $10 to the rescue,

you'll be entered into a raffle to get the chance to win this BEAUTIFUL Ari portrait.

Also, since I bought this party dog and realised I have no use for it,

I'm gonna just give that away too.

It says you can write on it, so I'll write anything you want and this is the first Ari plush ever made,

It's the only one in the world that looks like this.

WOAH!

Because it wasn't good enough!

We made changes to the real Aris, so they look different, but I bet someone would think it's cool.

So that's going too. Also ten random donors get a signed postcard from me.

Why? Because I have a few extra from signing cards,

and I want to get rid of them...

Happy Birthday to Ari the two-year-old brat and cheers to all the other Aris out there,

I wish you all happy lives filled with a lot of peanut butter

"Yeah?"

"Pretty bird, pretty bird,

you are a pretty bird, yeah, you're such a pretty bird.

*Murphy singing*

*Speaking* "Pretty bird"

"MURPHY!"

*Bird* MURPHY! MURPHY! MURPHY! MURPHY!

"Murphy is a pretty bird, pretty bird, pretty bird, Murphy is a pretty, pretty bird!

Pretty birdy, pretty birdy

Murphy is pretty bird, pretty bird

Murphy is a pretty pretty birdy

YEAHHHHHH MURPHY! Yeah Murphy!

*screech*