My ice cream party

It started in February, when the snow was on the ground.  Something triggered Cortlan's memory, and he pointed: "We went to that ice cream place for your birthday, Mommy!"  Yep, we sure did.  Last May.  "Can we go there?"  Well, they aren't open in the winter, so no, we will have to wait until the summer when they open.  "Can we go there for your birthday?"  Maybe we will.

We pass that ice cream place at least twice a day.  And so it went: at least three or four times a week, if not every day, Cortlan asked if we would get ice cream on my birthday.  He never forgot.  It went from, "Can we get ice cream on your birthday?" to "We are going to have an ice cream party for your birthday, Mommy!!" but never once did he ask to go and get ice cream any other time aside from my birthday...not even when we drove by on hot days when the place was packed with people.

The excitement was unbearable for him when my birthday finally came. 

We went to a nice dinner that ended up taking a bit longer than anticipated.  We weren't heading home until 6:45, and usually the kids are getting into their baths at 7:15.  I was completely stuffed from my crab cakes (yum!).  A stop at the ice cream place didn't seem like the best idea in the world. I gently suggested that maybe another day would be better.  The words were hardly even out of my mouth before I knew that to postpone this for a "better" day just wouldn't suffice and so I didn't even wait for the heartbroken reaction that was sure to come .  The turn signal went on, and we pulled in for our family ice cream party. 

Yeah, chocolate ice cream at bedtime on a school night when we are all full from dinner probably isn't ideal.  But the special event that Cortlan had planned for my birthday since February and the sheer joy and messy faces that resulted were probably my favorite presents of the day.  Sometimes, you just have to bend the rules a little bit.