Spain Dad, a baby blog

“Do you want to get married and have kids?” I asked Alleke this morning as I watched her pick up the box of milk with both hands and tip it into her bowl of cereal.

This post is part of a larger story. Click here to start at the beginning. I studied to be a high school teacher in the US, and I was taught never to show any physical affection for my students. I was never to touch my students—not even a hand on the shoulder—without risk of losing [...]

Watch Alleke terrorize her little brother on Vimeo.

Parental discretion is advised. I wouldn’t want my sweet little daughter to corrupt your innocent children. Watch Monsters on Vimeo.

Alleke sat at the edge of the couch in her pajamas and retched into a mop bucket while I held back her hair. When she finished, she laid her head on her pillow and smiled weakly. “I’m so happy,” she said. “Now I can eat guacamole.”

“What’s this?” I asked, taking a letter out of Alleke’s backpack. I opened it and read the first few lines. “Alleke,” I said, looking up from the letter, “your class is taking a field trip to the farm.” Alleke clapped her hands and started her victory lap around the living room until Grandma caught her [...]

“Your daughter has an interesting theory about breastmilk,” Warren said as we sat in a friend’s living room and ate Chinese food out of plastic containers. A few days earlier Warren had volunteered to watch Alleke and a few of her friends, which had entertainment value in itself because Warren doesn’t have kids, and if [...]

Photo by Jeffrey Beall. I set down the suitcase and took the envelope out of my back pocket. On the front was handwritten, “Room #526.” I was studying the arrow signs pointing down two long carpeted hallways when April and Alleke rolled up next to me with their suitcases. “Oh no,” April said. “What?” I [...]

Alleke demonstrates how to wrap a birthday present. Let’s just say it involves a lot of tape!

“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 [...]