my mother's day weekend

emre & his preschool gang (photo from the school)

we had a fun/exhausting/relaxing/grueling mother's day weekend.  we worked, we rested.  we spent it at  home... until we didn't.  let's start from the beginning, shall we?

mother's day tea decorations

it started with a mother's day tea at emre's preschool.  the teachers worked hard to get the kids to learn special songs for the day (they began learning them in february), baked treats and dressed up to make it a festive occasion.  i dressed emre up too, but unfortunately he 'spilled' while going potty right before the party began, so he wore sweatpants instead.  what are you going to do?

this time he didn't cry upon entering the room/seeing me, which i felt was a big improvement.

he ran over to me at first, but when i put him back in his seat, he stayed.

emre & thibault, being two years olds with fingers in their mouths

i'd love to say that emre sang all of the mother's day songs to me during the performance, but unfortunately he refused to sing even one word.  he just sat like this the whole time (i had to join him in his seat in the middle when he started to freak out).  they went around with a microphone, giving the children the chance to say 'happy mother's day, i love you mommy.'  emre refused to do that too.  oh well, maybe next time?  the teachers were all baffled, claiming that during rehearsals he was THE loudest and most animated of the bunch.  they will try to do it in class & record it so i can see, they say.  that's my kid!

proudly presenting me with my flowers & card...

...except that he didn't want to give up the flowers, and the card was tossed onto the floor.  my kid!

i did get to watch him eat the goodies (meant for the moms), so that was fun.

afterward we took a walk through the park before having lunch.  it was really fun to spend some time with my little guy - best mother's day gift i could have asked for!

poof, mommy!

blow, mommy, blow.

patiently awaiting his chicken tenders, a special treat, while telling me 'no sing, mommy.'  yeah, i get it!

back at home, remodeling had begun.  we had the brilliant idea to remodel our bathroom 'since we were working on the baby's room anyway.'  turns out this is a WAY bigger project/headache/MESS than we had anticipated.  earlier in the week they had removed the tub and created a terrific mess of what used to be our bathroom (as well as the rest of the dust & debris filled house).  on saturday they came to install the new tiles and flooring - easy, right?  no mess, right?  wrong.  it took them all day and the house was completely covered in dust, again.  bits of dried up cement were all throughout the hallway & what will, hopefully, be the baby's room.  it was almost too much.  emre and i stuck it out through the day, keeping busy with toys and trying to clean - dust, sweep, etc. - from time to time to 'keep ahead of it,' but there was no keeping ahead of it.  

by 6pm we were exhausted, starving, and breathing in way too much dust.  ben booked us a room at the hilton and off we went.  we were both so glad to be out of there, in a clean space with a working bath & room service!

happy!

poor ben had to stay back while they finished - and then he cleaned the house from top to bottom, not leaving until 12:30am.  then he had to return home in the morning after breakfast, to let them back in to continue their work.  by the morning, after all of his efforts to clean the place, dust had once again covered every surface in the house.  completely frustrating.

emre and i spent the morning at a park downtown - with swans and geese, much to emre's delight.  then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for mother's day brunch with ben's folks.  it was a fun, if exhausting morning.  we headed back to the room for nap time after brunch - while ben headed back to the house, yet again, to supervise the workers.

excited to explore!

such a big boy

after emre's nap we visited the executive lounge, where he had a snack while we had a nice facetime chat with sarah, jeff and mom & dad.  

happily munching on chips, nuts & juice - what a treat

by the time we finished, ben was finally done at the house and able to join us for an evening swim in the pool (they swam, i sat by and took lots of pictures).

the hotel made them purchase & wear these swim caps, which i thought made them look like one mean synchronized swimming duo!

getting ready to swim

once emre finally gave in to wearing his floating device, they were off.  and what a blast they had!  just that time in the pool made the whole day, for all of us.  so much fun - and so much to look forward to next week when we hit the med!  we knew from last year that he enjoyed the water, but wow, he's REALLY loving it now.  time for some swim lessons!

my loves

all in all, i have to say it was a very nice mother's day, despite being in the midst of chaos back at home.  here's hoping they can finish things up in a hurry, because our two year old can't really take any more disruptions from his routine (and we'd ALL like to take a bath).