Spain Dad, a baby blog

We sat at the dinner table and watched as Teo closed his hand around another grape, swung his arm backward, and dropped the grape on the floor. Both he and Alleke leaned over and watched the grape roll under the table, and then, again, they errupted into laughter until I thought they might have coughing [...]

This post is part of a larger story. Click here to start at the beginning. Although Alleke’s tantrums had stopped at home, and with an enthusiastic pep talk over a bowl of oatmeal she would even willingly walk to school, she was still clutching my leg and begging me to take her home when Lucía [...]

This post is part of a larger story. Click here to start at the beginning. As I watched Alleke stand at one end of the living room and shout at her brother who was asleep in April’s arms at the other end of the room, I sat at the table between them with my laptop [...]

This post is part of a larger story. Click here to start at the beginning. “April and I have noticed some changes in Alleke’s behavior in the last few weeks, and we would like to set up a time to talk to you,” I said to Sonia at the door of her classroom. Sonia cocked [...]

This post is part of a larger story. Click here to start at the beginning. “Did you talk to Sonia?” Vicky asked when April pulled up to the school playground with the stroller, and Alleke ran off to play. “No, why?” April asked. At first she didn’t even know who Vicky was talking about. She [...]

If I had any pull in the Catholic Church, I would nominate Alleke’s preschool teacher for sainthood. I would call her Santa Lucía. In my mind, a small miracle had occurred the first day I brought Alleke to preschool nine months earlier. We had arrived at Alleke’s classroom, and at the moment when I realized [...]

Carrots – Carota – Wortels – Geze – 胡萝卜- zanahoria – carotte – ニンジン by color line. “Hello,” I said, answering the phone. “Do you guys want to go for ice cream?” I didn’t say anything, but walked across the apartment and peered through the crack in the door at my daughter sleeping spread eagle [...]

Our apartment is a landfill. The table where we eat our meals has been taken over by slouching piles of neglected mail and paperwork. Sweaters, shoes, jeans and socks are strung across the furniture as if by some practical joke our house had been teepeed with our dirty laundry. The floor is a mine field [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]