So that’s Olivia, and she turned one, and I was at her party… what? No… not the hairy one, that is my friend, Joey, Olivia’s dad… who was my wife’s friend back in high school… and her and him… oh, and Big Johnny… you know, that’s Willie’s dad… they all went to high school together in San Diego, but they all ended up going to UC Berkeley, and that is where my wife met me and I met all of them, so I have known Joey a long time, so he is my friend too… did you get all that?

So look what I gave Olivia for her first birthday present… yes… that is the original watercolor painting that is the ending to my new children’s book: ‘The Lonely Little Wizard’… (available right over there in the sidebar if you click the picture of the book, it is actually a link)… [OMG, I really am shameless, aren’t I]… Oh, you spotted that picture and recognized it, did you? Because, yes, I did do posts of me painting that picture when I was at my mom’s house month’s ago… and yes, I did more posts of me doing the clean up work on that painting in Photoshop to get it ready for the book… good eye… good memory!

What? Yes, I do know that it is a strange gift to give a one-year-old. But hey, she might end up loving the book, and they are going to frame the painting, and she can have it hanging in her room, and it might be the last thing she looks at at night before she falls asleep, and maybe she will have awesome dreams of cool magical sunsets and a lonely little wizard that finally learns how to make a friend, and maybe it will help her make friends and maybe she will take the picture with her to college, and when she gets her first apartment, and then first house, and maybe it will still be hanging on her wall when her first kid is born, and they will read my book together and her kid will love it and she will pass on the picture to that kid and so on and so forth forever and ever.

Yes, Olivia was adorable at her party… I will remind you that I already did a post that was all about her… and her weird refusal to eat a cupcake… and, oh, hey, that reminds me… guess who is babysitting Olivia for like seven days in the next couple weeks! That’s right, Nanny McArthur! Yes, I know, I told you that I was a stay-at-home dad way back before anybody else… before it was cool… and the other daddies made fun of me… you have a really good memory.

 So, yes, she was adorable… she will even share her favorite fake cell phone with me…

And yes, the food was awesome… and it was a Star Wars-themed party, and I spent a lot of time surrounded by little kids in the back yard playing the Star Wars Jedi Nerf-light sabre funny attack game… that I was making up as I went along… man, kids love me… I think the best funny attack was when I used Scotch tape to attach 4 Nerf light sabers to the back of my hand and did the Wolverine attack… or maybe it was my stealth Elvis attack where I turned three swords into a microphone stand, started singing Heartbreak Hotel, and then attacked… but whatever…

At first she seemed a little confused about why I would give her a blank piece of paper… wait… Hey, Joey! She can’t see the pretty colors…

See, now she gets it. Oh, and speaking of pretty colors…

There were Star Wars coloring books on all the tables… and new boxes of Crayons… with still pointy tips… oh yeah, so I got all tie-dye-ey on that bad guy. HA! You can’t turn to the dark side when you are wearing tie dye! Game over.