To Mama's all over the world ...
May 14, 2006 at 6:31 PM
by Ashleigh
Me and My BoysI hope you had as great a day as I did! Happy Mother's Day. Like Sebastian said, 'everyone should be nice to their mamas everyday'. Well, actually he said 'everyone should be nice to the cat every day and not just on Mother's Day' and I said 'what about being nice to Mama every day and not just on Mother's Day'? He thereafer edited himself ;)
Today started off with tea in bed for me - very very rare! Made by Brad and brought into the bedroom at the outrageously early hour of 7 am! After that we got up, the kids had breakfast and Brad put together two Ikea boxes for me. They match my floss boxes but have three big drawers each. Perfect for leaflets! Now they're ready for painting.
At 11 we went to Ouderkerk a/d Amstel to have lunch at Praq. I'd heard a bit about it, did some research via Dinnersite.nl and decided that as it was 'kid friendly' it was definitely a place for us. It was divine!
Brad had shrimp croquettes and prawns with noodles, I had a greek salad and a steak tournedo served on a herbed rosti and we followed it with the most sublime creme brulee I've ever tasted. The kids had pizza and crunchy chicken followed by a brownie sandwich.
Note that this is so far from fast food that even the kid's food is superb. The service was great, the ambience is terrific, the restaurant is sooooo stylish and best of all, the kids get to have a great time too. The restaurant has so much attention to detail and there is so much for the kids to do. There's a colouring table, but not just a couple of crayons in a corner. It's a style statement in itself. There's also a wall where the kids can arrange foam shapes, a tv with a sofa and a huge bean bag for jumping on, various wooden toys, wooden rocking horses, toys at the tables, indestructible crockery and cutlery for the kids and real linen napkins for the parents!
I was a bit horrified when I saw someone wipe their kid's snotty nose with the linen napkin (especially as there were paper ones for the kids) but I guess it takes all sorts.
Our table was a car. The lighting is clever, a chandelier made from mini-spray bottles, plates made into light fittings of which there is unfortunately no really good picture amongst the ones that we took.
You can see them reflected here.. Everything is colourful, carefully placed with great attention to detail, and functional. A 'dot' theme runs through the whole restaurant and ties into its logo.
I got some cute Mother's Day gifts - an impatiens plant in a hand painted pot from Joe. Yay for those pre-school teachers! From Seb I received a 'vuurtoren' candle with a beach decorated with shells below. Seb's cute card had this verse in it:
Lieve mams, wat be je een schat. Ik zoen je het liefst helemaal plat. Blijf bij mij dicht in de buurt. Zolang je leven duurt.**He learnt it by heart so he could recite it to me. Sweet, huh?
** In English it basically means, 'dear mum, you're a love, I want to kiss you til you drop, stay close to me as long as you live' but it loses a bit in the translation ;)
Comments
Hi and thanks for visitng my blog. Glad to hear you had a good day too. Where are you an expat from?
What a wonderful Mother's Day!! Love the poem, too. :-)
Wow - that colouring table is cool! Ben would like that. Sounds like you had a lovely mummy day :)
May 14, 2006 8:15 PM