Yesterday was my family birthday party for myself, my brother, and my Grandma. I will be turning 28 later this week (it will actually be during my first Saturday living in LA).

Anyway, so the party was at my Grandma’s pool and we ordered a bunch of giant pizzas. I stupidly packed my sunscreen in my storage unit and didn’t ask to borrow anyone else’s. After a couple of hours, my shoulders began to feel a bit raw.

Turns out that my back, shoulders, arms, and chest are now a lovely shade of red and the agony… Well, it hurts. Could have been worse, but it still hurts. And my after-sun moisturizer is in storage as well.

By the way, it was a delight to see Brie and play around with her. She loves nothing less than to ride around on my shoulders and wear my fedora instead of me. And I spoiled her with frozen girl scout thin mints.

At one point, I told Jayme that I was keeping her and she couldn’t take Brie home. Following is the conversation verbatim:

Jayme: Brie, do you want to live with Uncle Aaron?
Brie: Yeah.

Jayme comes and sits down next to Brie on the couch, who is sitting next to me. She looks at the two year old and continues.

Jayme: If you live with Uncle Aaron, you’ll never see Mommy, Sean (Jayme’s boyfriend), or Lucas (Sean’s son that is 4 months younger than Brie) ever again.
Brie: (without hesitation) Okay.

The look of shock and pain on Jayme’s face was priceless. You know that it’s one of those things that Brie didn’t completely understand, but just her saying that can strike certain chords within you.

I thought back to the day and how, as I sat on the grass to eat, Brie would come and sit next to me. Or how she mostly wanted to be in the pool with me holding her or how I actually got her to swim and kick her legs with me holding her up at the top of the water.

The entire day just reminded me of my desire to be a father. I know how much of a blessing it will be and I can’t wait until the day that it happens.