Life is a double nut chocolate chunk cookie

I arrived home this evening to find Brad cooking roti and paneer makhni, the house spotlessly clean, laundry clean and folded, and the children contentedly playing with Play-Doh. It's so difficult being me...

My life and outlook have improved dramatically since my previous blog post. Work is more pleasant, my tyrannical manager has learned to respect me (even, dare I say, value me) and our social life has been pretty good, all things considered.

Sadly, though, my waistline continues to suffer the effects of all the American food I insist on stuffing into my pie-hole. I just can't free myself from the temptation of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Cookies 'n Cream ice cream, and Costco's double nut chocolate chunk cookies. They make the perfect ending to a relentless day when savoured with a glass of vanilla-flavoured almond milk, while mindlessly surfing the Net and listening to the soothing sighs of slumbering children.

Yet, if my weight is the only casualty of this fabulous journey, I consider myself fortunate. Moving to a different country allows one to take on a completely different perspective - I'm fully immersed in this life, and at the same time, strangely detached. For instance, driving to work, I trundle along in the slow lane, drinking in the spring sunshine; appreciating the young vineyards, the cow-dotted green fields, the endless wildflowers; admiring the raptors circling and swooping overhead, and I know that I am luckier than anyone who is not here, in this place, right now. I watch the other drivers, eyes locked ahead, minds already at work, and smiling inanely to myself, I know I am luckier than all the people who are here, in this place, right now.

At home, things are settling down nicely. The children occasionally make it through an entire night without waking once, and I'm finally, for the first time in over 3 years, able to join that elite club of moms whose children "sleep through". Spending all this time with Brad has been wonderful for the kids. The biggest development in Nikhil has been emotional - he's become more reasonable, less prone to tantrums or sulking. Ariane is starting to say 2-word "sentences". When she wakes up earlier than Nikhil in the mornings and can't find him, she runs through the house calling "Keel! Baba!" (Nikhil, brother).

Ariane is fascinated with shoes, clothes and makeup (she calls makeup "kup-up") and I usually find my makeup under the bathroom counter, smashed and scratched and smeared everywhere. She prefers her dad over me most of the time, even in the middle of the night or when she gets hurt.

Nikhil is now into typing. He's figured out how to change the font size and colour in Word, and has fun typing out words. We promised him a bunk bed once he learns to put himself to bed, so he ran over to the computer and typed "bucbed".

Both kids call Brad "mom", I have no idea why. They call me Mom too, sometimes Nikhil calls me Dad. It's quite strange how they have this inborn notion that the primary caregiver should be mom. The other day, Nikhil was giving us a lengthy list of all the things he wanted us to buy, so Brad, exasperated, told him he should go out and work so he could buy all these things. Taken aback, Nikhil replied, "No, I can't go to work! I'm not a lady!" I hope he's good at identifying sugar-mommies...