Reflections after 30 Days Abroad

So today is our 30 day milestone. We have officially been here for 1 month and I thought, "what has changed in the past month?" Well, here is a list:

• Location -- we moved from warm and sunny to cold and lack of sun.  They give their children vitamin D drops here because THERE IS NO SUN.
• Moving internationally is perhaps one of the more stressful things you can do to a marriage (fortunately we survived that gracefully, but I wouldn't test it out on a struggling relationship).
• My son can live on Cheerios and sweet potato mash -- both things I can always find in a grocery store.
• Pets and babies are remarkably resilient and can adjust to almost any place or time zone.
• The forced transition from full time working mom to full time mom has not been as easy as I had expected.
• I took up ridiculous coffee drinking much easier than I had expected.
• I am a joke on two legs -- my 9 month old laughs IN MY FACE whenever I scold him or say "no" in a forceful tone.
• Calvin has learned to clap, wave/hold his hand out to you and give "high fives" since moving here.
• The Swedish language is not intuitive -- in fact I rely on my intuition rarely since its now almost always wrong.
• Whenever I hear Swedish police sirens, I believe I'm in a scene from one of the Bourne Identity movies.
• Packing my winter jackets might have been the biggest mistake of my life.  They are on a ship somewhere on the Atlantic still but I desperately need them now.  Oh well.
• Traversing Stockholm requires comfortable walking shoes.  
• Swedish MTV doesn't play music videos either...
• Keeping in touch with family back home is easier than it had been 10 years ago -- thanks to Skype, FaceTime, OoVoo and gmail chat and video.