Spain Dad, a baby blog

Tonight Alleke had a first. She shot milk out of her nose from giggling. I’ll give you one guess who made her laugh that hard.

Computer Photo by yoshimov. “Can you take Alleke?” April asked. “Sure,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder, then finished the sentence I was typing. April put Alleke into my arms and looked over my shoulder at the computer screen. “What are you working on?” she asked. “I’m filling in some information that was missing [...]

Alleke has a very broad definition of the term “toy.” Basically anything April and I use around the house, she points to and thinks “That’s a toy.” The world is one giant toy box. Here are a few of Alleke’s favorite toys: Toes (changing diapers and bath time)When Alleke is waiting for a diaper change [...]

Suit and TieWe’re standing in line at the bank. I’m grabbing Alleke’s fingers with my mouth to make her giggle. She stops laughing for a moment, and lifts her chin so she can see over my shoulder. She looks very serious. I turn around to see what she’s looking at. A man in a suit [...]

We found an apartment. We thought we might be looking for a place for a couple weeks, maybe even a month, because we were being very selective about which neighborhood we wanted to live in. Then we ended up taking the first place we looked at. All of the apartments in this neighborhood were out [...]

Nic knelt down on the floor in the living room and lined up all his cars along the front of the rug. He said Alleke needed some toys. “April, what’s your favorite character from Cars?” Nic asked, pointing at his line up. I recognized each of his car as a character from Pixar’s latest animated [...]

I looked at the clock. It read 2:04. This time I was in Spain, I was in bed, and it was the middle of the night. My mind was like a scratched CD, playing the same fragments of thought over and over again in my head. For the moment, my mind was busy scribbling Spanish [...]

I took my eye off the road and looked at the clock. It said 2:04. “We’ll be on a plane by this time tomorrow,” I said, glancing at April. She smiled. “Are you ready?” she asked. I took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m ready,” I said, saying each word slowly and carefully as if they [...]

I eyed the green sign from the highway and pulled into the parking lot. This must be the place. I looked for my brother’s SUV, the one with the South Dakota plates, but didn’t see it. They must be running late. I turned off the van, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and put [...]