Spain Dad, a baby blog

How romantic is it that just before Valentine’s Day I caught a virus called the kissing disease? Or maybe it’s not romantic at all since April didn’t get it too. Hmmm… Anyway, this morning while I was lying on the couch resting, April had the following conversation with one of the grandmas that drops her [...]

I woke to someone tapping my shoulder. I opened my eyes and blinked in the darkness. April must have come to bed, I thought. I felt the bed shaking underneath me. Is she laughing? I wondered. April leaned over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, trying hard to get out a few words between [...]

“Let me check to make sure we have everything,” April said, opening the binder with the word “ADOPTION” written in permanent black marker on the binding and flipping through pages of blood test results and tax records and goverment-stamped certificates. I glanced at the clock. “We won’t be late,” April said, trying to reassure me [...]

Today after I put Alleke down for a nap, I began clearing the dishes from lunch, which included eating the cold eggplant parmesan off Alleke’s plate and checking to see if she had left any chocolate milk in her glass. What most people don’t realize is that cleaning up after a toddler is a completely [...]

Alleke stood at the edge of the bath tub and watched as I unhooked the shower head, turned on the water, and rinsed out the inside of the tub. When I finished, she reached for the shower head. “You can hold it,” I said, “just don’t get your clothes wet because we’re going to put [...]

I listen to the footsteps as they cross the hardwood floor, crackling like a bonfire. They stop at the edge of the bed, and I open my eyes and blink into the darkness. A shadowy figure sinks a knee into the bed, climbs over me, and burrows under the covers. I lie there, thinking. I [...]

I cut off a piece of banana and set it on the table in front of Alleke. April and I were talking between bites, but we stopped to watch Alleke carefully reach for the banana and put it in her mouth. It was like watching that carnival game with the mechanical arm that the person [...]

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 [...]