I’ve mentioned before that Mother’s Day can get a little confusing when you’re a bi-national family living overseas – and when Sunday is the first day of the working week.

What’s more, last weekend, we managed to take this confusion to a whole new level.

On Sunday, last week, I rushed home from work, and was greeted with flowers, chocolates – and, drum-roll, a set of digital bathroom scales! (not only do they tell me my weight to the exact decimal place, they also give information that honestly should be censored, such as BMI, fat-ratio and water (wine?) content – needless to say, I never hop on after eating and sometimes don’t drink a drop of liquid for two hours beforehand).

I digress. Last Sunday, we gave chocolates to our nanny, and made a phone call to my American DH’s (surprised) mother in Lebanon. I even wished everyone a happy Mother’s Day on my blog. It was one of those ‘feel-good’ days and we just assumed we hadn’t heard much about it because we were in the UAE and the British expatriate contingent here is larger than the American.

Then, at bedtime, the penny dropped, when a friend I’d sent a greeting to told me it was next Sunday. We’d got the day totally wrong. We were a week early – how embarrassing!

So today, it’ll be a quiet Mother’s Day for us. I’m still feeling wonderfully spoilt by last weekend’s treats and can’t eat too much with *those* scales sitting upstairs. By chance, I have the day off work and BB’s school is also closed. I may see if he’ll join me at Starbucks before going to the supermarket, then I’ve promised I’ll take him swimming.

To all my American mom friends – Happy Mother’s day, again! And, to any US moms in the UAE reading this, I have a little idea for a glamourous Mother’s day gift you could suggest if you happen to walk past the Damas jewelers store at the Dubai mall.

Yes, it really is – the world’s first 24-carat gold iPad 3, launched in Dubai and so far only shown to VIPs. But you’d better be quick – there’s only 250 of them. Your DH just has to come up with a cool $5,499!