Recess options during cold snap are slim pickings; Wildkratts wins the day
The kids have not gone outside for recess all week, but Kina hates soccer more than boredom, so she’s been going to the auditorium and watching shows about wild animals.
I really had a good run there at the beginning of the trip, didn’t I? Anyway, here’s the rest—including today’s Daddy-flew-home-with-food-poisoning edition.
Visiting Crustacean Expert Dwells in the Tidal Pools with Dozens of Hermit Crab Friends
After examining local crab colony, she declares specimens “so cute!”
If there is one takeaway to be had from this trip, it’s that Kina will be majoring in marine biology.
Sardines, jellyfish run close second in race for Kina’s oceanic fave
When I was her age, I was starting to be fascinated by ocean life. I didn’t get to pet a ray, though, which is why she will become a famous marine biologist and I will have to keep working in journalism.
She cozies up with Lala to watch Frozen 2, remembers life as 5 year old
It’s starting to be the case that Kina will have memories that are sharp enough and distant enough to be nostalgic about. For a long time, the memories she had of herself from three years earlier were too faint to mean much; at the same time, the crisp memories were too recent to feel sweet. Now she can decide randomly on Christmas to sneak away with Lala into her bedroom to watch Frozen and remember what it was like to wear Elsa dresses and sing “Into the Unknown” all day. I miss those days, too, but it is pretty special to watch her memory come to life.
New pre-Californian tradition involves Kina doing somersaults independently among the modernist ghosts of Idlewild
One of the greatest luxuries of our current lifestyle is being able to stay in an airport hotel the night before a morning flight to California, and Kina thinks this is totally normal and wonderful.
Baked pasta eaten after extreme trampolining; 8 y/o insists on Kuromi theme
And so ends our esteemed publisher’s extended annual birthday, on a rope swing before a full tray of baked pasta and all the Kuromi decorations sold on earth.
“I feel a little taller,” says newly-awakened 8-year-old
I am breaking all the rules by skipping over the four issues I have forgotten to send, but it is Kina’s birthday, and the fiscal repercussions of not sending the publisher’s birthday edition on time are quite severe. I am so so so so so so proud of her. I expect you are, too.
She chunks down three filipino bbq skewers before taking a bite of stuffing and then asks to be excused
I am extremely proud of the increasing time-consuming pork BBQ skewers I made on Thursday (which included making my own banana ketchup, which was recently banned in the U.S., “because of some stupid additive,” as Laurea pointed out). The skewers were the star of the show, especially if the diner is Kina. I put about the same amount of work in for the stuffing and got considerably more lukewarm feedback from our house critic, which tells me something about how she values tradition.
She vacillates between begging to leave and chasing psychedelic butterflies
For the seven of you who asked me in Instagram, Luna Luna is actually pretty neat and also good for kids, even if you can’t ride the Basquiat ferris wheel.
Kina and Runa try independence on for size, bend rules re landscaping
It was curious when Kina strolled up to me on Saturday and asked specifically to be allowed to walk alone through the park with her friend Runa. We’ve been talking a lot about independence lately (see also last week’s Sunday Kina about taking the trash out on her own) and I know Kina is fascinated to see teenaged girls walking around in packs. This felt important to her—and not so terribly different from letting her play unsupervised in a large playground.
And so, keeping in mind that this was a fairly well-contained park with few distractions, sharp objects, or large untended chasms, I let her go, with no particular constraints, other than not to leave the park—nothing but, “Go. Fine. I’ll be here.”
I should not have been surprised by the mild sense of panic that followed this heroic act of confident parenting, not knowing exactly where Kina was or what she was up to, so I distracted myself with talking to Runa’s dad (who does not, he reminded me after first seeing this edition, have bangs) about the inner life of our daughters until they returned, some ten minutes later.
Publisher agrees to let parents go on a date as long as she receives surprise overnight gift of “Blue Raspberry Hubba Bubba—or regular”
This is the intersection of past storylines about the tooth fairy and parental dates. It is also a reminder of the origin of this newspaper—a space for me (and you) to pay attention to something that is nourishing and small and curious. I hope that is working.
Congenital giggler pushes back on unjust ballet giggle ban
I walked into the ballet studio to pick Kina up, and all the little girls were just shouting “POTATO” at each other and guffawing, as they were born to do.
