Spain Dad, a baby blog

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 [...]

Especially when April loves nothing more than to travel, and Amsterdam is one of her favorite cities on the planet, and I offered to keep Alleke at home with me while she was gone. The idea was to send April to Amsterdam for a weekend conference while Alleke and I stayed in Madrid. April often [...]

T E A Photo by R@punseLL. She always sees me coming, as if she’s been sitting there at the table by the window with her cup of tea waiting for me all afternoon. The front door was unlocked and left open just a crack. I stepped inside. Before I had time to set down my [...]

Photo by Livke. This post is part of a series of blog posts telling one story, the story of my 27th birthday, which was Saturday. I started writing the story yesterday and soon realized I had more words to put on the page than would fit in one post. So, I’ll tell a little bit [...]

child_crying Photo by >Joel<. Today I was checking my email on my laptop at the conference center. Riekje, one of the people I worked with in Madrid, walked by with her son Ethan following close behind, wailing at the top of his lungs. Ethan takes after his Dutch mother. He’s blonde with blue eyes and [...]

Justin sat back in his chair and sighed. “I don’t sleep well anymore,” he said. I laughed. “Me neither,” I said. “It’s like my body knows the baby is coming,” Justin said. • • • • April and I are spending the week at an annual conference in Holland with the people we work with [...]

This morning Kelly and Amy, friends from Madrid, called over to the house where we’re staying in Amsterdam and asked us if we wanted to go into the city. An hour later as the four of us sat on the metro, I asked if anyone had anything in mind for the afternoon. Amy shrugged her [...]

Today I was talking to one of my friends in Amsterdam. She’s pregnant with her second. Our conversation went something like this: “So, I’m sure you’ve read in all the pregnancy books about what happens four or five days after the baby is born.” “Ah…” I said. “You know, how four or five days after [...]