Marlon totally scored 10 out of 10 for organizing my first Mother’s Day. After Tala’s breastfast breakfast at 7am, he put me to bed, whisked her out of our bedroom and let me sleep in until her next feed at 11am. As the mother of an eight week-old baby, you think you’ll never ever sleep in until 11am again, so this was definitely the right way to get the party started.
I woke up to breakfast in bed: chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup (a hard-to-find commodity in the Netherlands) and bacon. No pictures, sorry—I demolished everything before I remembered the camera!
Then it was off to a top-secret location for my Mother’s Day surprise. He put me on the wrong tram and took me the long way around the block to throw me off, but eventually we reached it: The Conservatorium Hotel on Museumplein, and in its basement, the Akasha Spa.
Obviously I couldn’t take pictures of people in a spa state of undress, so all spa images are via The Conservatorium.
He deposited me at the spa, took the baby, and disappeared for the next five hours. Left to my own devices, what was I supposed to do?
Image via The Conservatorium
Nothing. That was the plan, apparently: for me to do absolutely nothing. To do nothing in the steaming marble hammam, or the Finnish sauna, or the pool, for five blissful hours.
Image via The Conservatorium
Oh, right, I had an Ayurveda massage. But I didn’t have to do anything there either, just lay there like a blob while hot sesame oil was slathered all over me. I hate hard massages, so this soft and gentle treatment was perfect for me. My husband, he knows me well.
I’m not a spa addict, but after the beating my body took from pregnancy, birth and caring for a newborn, this was like being reborn. After gorging myself on idleness, I emerged from this sleek and gleaming paradise of pampering to meet Marlon and Tala upstairs in the hotel. I had been here only once before, and this time I got to take a closer look… and take pictures, of course!
