Spain Dad, a baby blog

We’re off to a good start as expectant parents. Today we took our daughter to her first food fight. This food fight is called La Tomatina and claims to be the world’s largest tomato fight. Each year at the end of August around 30,000 people from around the world swarm the town of Buñol, Spain [...]

I had two dreams last night. Dream One: The Hurricane In my first dream April and I were hiking with a group of people to the top of a volcano on a deserted island. April was eight months pregnant, like she is in real life, and seemed to be keeping up with the rest of [...]

“What’s a onesie?” I asked. “It’s like an undershirt for babies,” April said as she folded up a pink little shirt with frills around the sleeves and “little princess” written in blue cursive on the front. “Okay,” I said. I looked at the little white gown I was holding in my hand and placed it [...]

April walked in the kitchen and filled up her glass with water from the sink. “How’s it going in there?” I asked, setting down the knife I was using to cup up tomatoes. “Slow,” April said, referring to the third chapter of her Masters thesis she was hoping to have written by the end of [...]

Today I woke up before the alarm clock went off. I opened my eyes, and I had a moment of clarity. I knew where I was, what day it was, and what projects I was working on at work. It was like someone had pulled a shade in my mind. This is not the first [...]

Here is a list of Spanish words I’ve become well acquainted with since April’s been pregnant. análisis de sangre – blood analysis el bebé – baby el biburón – bottle la cesárea – caserean el chupete – pacifier la clínica – the clinic la comadrona – midwife (see la matrona also) las contracciones – contractions [...]

I’m all about bad parenting books—because most of the time after reading something utopian, something very goody-two-shoe like The Baby Book, I feel like the best thing April and I could do as parents is the moment the baby is born, bundle her up in swaddling clothes, and hand her off to the nuns at [...]

Over Christmas we visited our friends Jesús and Rachel who live in El Puerto de Santa María, and they gave us two seasons of a television series called Joan of Arcadia on DVD. The show was on CBS in the U.S. for two years, 2003-2005, and won numerous awards including the Humanitas Prize and People’s [...]

My dad turned 56 yesterday. Happy Birthday Dad! Unfortunately I didn’t buy him a gift. Since I live in Spain, and he lives in the U.S., there was no chance of running to the store last minute and pretending I had something for him all along…not that I’ve ever done anything like that before. However, [...]

Sometimes I forget how little I know about this country. Scene 1: The PhonebookWe visited the hospital yesterday. Well, actually, first we had to find it. Our doctor had told us we would be having the baby at the private hospital since we had private health insurance. What she didn’t tell us was where it [...]