Spain Dad, a baby blog

I think Teo thinks prayer is just another game of Peek-a-Boo…

I spent this past weekend praying with cloistered nuns in a monastery. When I arrived, I turned off my phone and took the miniature video camera out of my pocket and tossed it in the suitcase.

Watch Alleke go for the record for fastest reciting of the Lord’s prayer—junior division, of course. I clocked her at 15 seconds flat on my phone.

“Who said you could play with that?” April asked, walking over to the table where Alleke sat with an open bottle of fingernail polish. Alleke smiled innocently. “God did,” she said. April put her hands on her hips and frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked. “God told me in my heart that I could [...]

Alleke bowed her head reverently and folded her hands above her plate. “Dear God, thank you for my cousin Josie and my cousin Emma and my cousin DJ and my cousin Charlie.” She lifted her head and peeked at the people sitting around the table. “Thank you for mama and for Teo and for daddy [...]

For Alleke Amsterdam will forever be the city where anything goes. Not because she noticed the skunky smell of marijuana as we left Centraal Station or the coffee shops with their chalkboard menus listing Moroccan hash for five euros a pop, but because when we arrived at our friends’ house in the quiet suburb of [...]

I pray more than I used to. It’s because of Alleke. Of course I pray more for Alleke, usually while I’m rocking her to sleep at night, but mostly I pray more because Alleke asks me to. I was thinking about this at the dinner table because we had just started eating and Alleke had [...]

The first time I contemplated Alleke’s spirituality was at the dinner table. She was staring at me from her high chair while I prayed, and I realized that although I had no idea how to make God make sense to a 5-month-old (let alone myself most of the time), Alleke was still watching me, and [...]

“See,” I said, “it’s baby Jesus.” I held Alleke over the railing so she could get a better look. She squirmed, flopped over my arm, and reached for the floor. I set her down, and she ran over to investigate a metal plate on the floor. I leaned against the railing and watched. Sometimes I [...]

Pumpkins Photo by Tambako the Jaguar. I stood at the doorway to our bedroom in my slippers and watched as April lifted Alleke into the stroller, set two warm pies wrapped in tin foil in the back, and rolled into the hallway, closing the door behind her. I stood there for a moment smelling the [...]