Ahhh – May 9th – Mother’s Day in America and Malin’s day everywhere.  This year I shared a celebration with our au pair Malin, who turned 20 years old.  And like a typical 20 yr old, she couldn’t even wait for us to be home when she opened her presents, but I digress. 

I have the best husband in the world.  My first present was the ability to sleep in (until 6:45am).  My second present was fantastic home-made waffles made by chef Joel and line cooks Nicholas and Dexter.  They then presented me with my official gifts – Nicholas purchased a gift certificate to a local nail salon (he said he wanted to go with me, but that might lead to future problems), Dexter has lots of energy and wants to do some fun activities with me and so bought me a book entitled “Unplugged Play – no batteries, no plugs, pure fun – 710 games and activities for ages 12 months to 10 years”.  Of course, I just opened it and turned to a page with a sample itinerary for a 2nd birthday party and here I was just going to let the kids go wild.  Hmmmm – I wonder if I need to rethink my strategy.  And Joel got me the newest  book by my favorite author (“Bite Me: A love story”).

Anyway, breakfast was followed by nearly-naked reading time with my boys.  Those diapers stayed on.  We’ve had one too many naked accidents in this home.  Then the clothes went on and Joel, I and the boys walked to the local, authentic, French bakery for some heavenly croissants.

By the time we got home, the girls (Malin, Catrin, and Angelica) had awakened from their beauty sleep and had opened all of Malin’s birthday presents without us.  I’m still disappointed in that.  I love birthdays.  Even when they belong to others.  Dexter then flirted up a storm with the girls.  He so knows how to work it, in order to get close to a computer…….

My cheese shot of the morning – hot tea in a last year’s mother’s day mug with my heavenly croissant.

The day was absolutely beautiful.  You couldn’t have asked for a nicer day, so the boys and I headed over to the local elementary school to play on the playground equipment.  Thank God for Joel.  This is the part of motherhood I am not made out for.  As soon as Nicholas and Dexter started to climb the equipment to slide down the slides, I started to panic.  It freaks me out watching them play above the ground.   They did fine though and Joel kept me calm.  No one fell down or had a heart attack.  No pictures either.  We forgot the camera.

After feeding the boys lunch and putting them down for a nap, Joel capitalized on the fact that he had a harem of women to do his bidding and made us move the air hockey table out to the garage (I think he’s a little confused).  With a harem of women, he made us move furniture.  That just goes to show you how tired he was from a night of listening to the monitor and how lucky I was to sleep in that morning.  Here’s Catrin and Angelica playing with it before it could be reassembled.  It was sad to see our toy officially kicked out to the garage in order to make more space for the boys’ things.

Then it was off to my parents’ house where my mom cooked a fantastic dinner for all to enjoy.  The boys discovered the deck and the fact that they could throw balls on it and no one would yell at them.  Don’t worry, there is a glass barrier between the deck and certain painful injuries (Joel tested its safety by trying to ram Dexter’s head through the crack repeatedly).

I made a cake and we all sang Happy Birthday to Malin.  I wonder what she wished for……

More playing with Grandma and Grandpa followed by the trip home.  You can see how happy Dexter was to leave.

I’m not quite sure what Nicky was thinking about though….

And then the boys cuddled on the couch watching Shrek while I fixed the evening meal.  It was a fantastic Mother’s Day.  I hope all you moms out there had an equally great day because you deserve it.

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-Katie