Spain Dad, a baby blog

In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to try to work from home while your toddler is supposed to be taking a nap. Press the arrow below to listen in… Alleke kept this up for a good 45 min. until I gave in and let her watch TV. This is not an ideal world, [...]

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 [...]

The stroller was parked at the front door, and I sat on the couch stuffing a backpack with Alleke’s things when she walked over and handed me her blankie. “Put this in the backpack,” she said, “because I want to sleep with it on the bench tonight.” I’m sure I would have had no idea [...]

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 [...]

When I put Alleke to bed on Christmas Eve, I thought twice about telling her about the presents we would open in the morning and the party we would go to at her friends’ house. Like most kids on Christmas Eve, I thought she would wake up ridiculously early looking for presents and party food. [...]

I just finished writing my first kids’ book. I won’t be looking for a literary agent, however, because I wrote this book just for Alleke. In fact, she is the main character in the story, and the book is about her new bedtime routine. Discipline as training (not punishment) I made a significant breakthrough in [...]

The waiter came over and started gathering our dishes. “I’m going to run up to our room and wake up Alleke” I said. I chugged my orange juice and pushed my chair away from the table. “Don’t forget the baby monitor,” April said, pointing at the box with the antenna sitting quietly among the dishes. [...]

I don’t sleep well on planes, and having been slung shot across the ocean, effectively winding the clock forward seven hours, I found myself sitting at home in front of a bowl of cereal wondering when I could go back to bed. I still had the whole day in front of me. So when April [...]

This post is part of a series called Spring Cleaning where I asked you, the reader, if there was anything you wanted to know, but never asked about me or my family. Today’s question was asked by Valerie: My husband and I are being transferred to Spain this summer and we have two small boys [...]

I was lying there with the pillow over my head. I had managed to recover from jet lag earlier in the week, but now that April and Alleke were home, the process had started over again, and we were all awake. Because we share the same bed, I was invited to their slumber party. Not [...]