I am the mother who dreads birthdays because, aside from having a husband who can craft a mean invite, I fall short of creativity in the party department. When those gifts were being passed out during the creation process, I was napping. I have 2 kids whose birthdays fall in complete opposite seasons. Brooklyn - dead of winter. Difficult to party when it's freezing out. August- dead of summer. Difficult to party when walking outside invokes a heat stroke. Were I the aforementioned type of mother, neither of those factors (summer/winter) would slow me down. Sigh.

July 17 crept toward me this summer, looming enormously as the day of August's 2nd birthday. Did I do a thing about it? Nope. Eventually, 3 days before the birthday, I conceded to invite my family and a few of our closest friends over for a casual cake/ice cream get together. An hour after making THAT major decision, I had what was to me, an epiphany of gigantic proportion. Not only would I have a get together, but we would have BANANA SPLITS instead of cake and ice cream! It would kind of be a real party!

Let's not get crazy here. We had no party favors, no real invitations, I'm sad to say. Only a hastily crafted email to the aforementioned parties and a prayer that our A/C would hold out with extra folks in the house. This morning, I made a hasty run to Sam's for tons of bananas and to Kroger for the fixins for the splits.

And ladies and gents, it was a success. Every person I invited came, the banana splits were a hit, the kids made colossal messes of themselves, there were toys everywhere and happy kids finding corners in which to play. Since we invited Gio and Alana, it was a must that coffee was flowing, and that was also a hit. We have lots of coffee drinking pals. All in all, I was super pleased that my impromptu party was a success. August got some great toys, I had so many of my loved ones in one room, and I wasn't even fretting about all the people in my house. It was awesome.