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.
A stunning referendum on family turns in late voting
I did have to press her on whether “friends” should also come above “pasta”, but it wasn’t a hard fight. That said, I’m not sure there’s anything else on earth that rises to the level of pasta.
Kid unexpectedly takes responsibility for empty pizza boxes, agrees to carry them to garbage cans 3 stories down as long as Daddy says “I love you” from window
In the actual newspaper version of this headline, the story would continue on to say that Kina later went downstairs to fetch a package of toothbrushes from the package table in the lobby. Laurea and I have never been prouder, and Kina didn’t even get attacked by rats!
So, in the days leading up to the election, I got really distracted and sloppy about sending the daily edition(s), and I had it all planned out that I would send them twice a day until election day, when things would be great and exciting and I would be so happy and also responsible. Neither of those things panned out, so! Here’s three wonderfully sweet editions of The Daily Kina from before this extremely [waves maniacally everywhere] week.
Kina Eviscerates Yet Another Croissant, Squeezing Its Delicate, Flaky Innards Into a Dense Orb That She Gnaws on Like a Demented Weasel
It is charming in a way, but it generates a lot of crumbs
To be fair, it’s for solving a math problem, but at least we have one.
The strategy was about figuring out how many shelves are in a mystery bookcase, and if Kina is half as good at strategizing against the decline of democracy as she is about division, I would say we’re gonna be fine.
I don’t know what else to do. The last time this happened was a month before she was born, and we were so afraid. I think this time we are ready, maybe more familiar, but no less afraid. I’m showing up for her.
I’m working through all this. A lot of you are, too. Be liberal with the hugs.
Blissful if perhaps less oblivious than the last time we did this
I’m skipping a few backlogs here that I will catch up on in the next couple of days, because I am right now in a cab home from my news job making sure that people can see election results, and I am anxious. I know that these moments have meaning and movement and surprises, but I do not need the surprises any more than the rest of you do. I am frankly a bit tired of surprises. Mostly what keeps me tethered is the day to day of life with my family and being in touch with friends and standing around in playgrounds and the certainty that is my neighborhood, which has moved in slow and plodding and mostly nourishing ways over the twenty-two years that I have lived there. The changes that last, I think, change slowly. The stuff that matters takes time. It grows, like a child, and the only thing you can do is pay attention to it and nudge it gradually in the right direction. The surprises, when they are sad, do not matter. The person matters, and the person takes time.
Wherever we land, remember that your country is the people you love, who love you, who won’t stop bouncing on the bed and asking about Nevada.
By her logic, they know her already and must have forgotten
She visited my office one time, but she figures that people were impressed enough that they must have forgotten to reach out to see if she wanted to participate.
Opinion editor looks at available options, makes controversial call against fascist
Vote Harris—early, if you can—on the Working Families party line. It is the thing we can do right now to make space for arguments we need to have. Any alternative closes off any room for debate—and not in ways that serve the people we care for the most. For Kina.
Rumor of former classmate’s return from Copenhagen for one week, summarily dismissed by parents, proves to be true
Apparently you can come back to your elementary school for a little while after moving to another country, which I did not know. You can also go to the Apple store for field trips. Man breath.
How Lucy’s parents weren’t exactly chimps, and how Kina is her own special being
I don’t know why it was surprising to me that a third grader hadn’t been introduced to the theory of evolution, but I enjoyed the opportunity to think it through with Kina, who was really hung up on the idea that Lucy–an australopithecine ancestor of modern humans (with whom Laurea and Kina are both obsessed)—had parents who might have been chimps.
When did we stop being chimps and start being humans? Was one generation chimp-ly and the next human-ly? What was so different about Lucy?
I told Kina that we don’t stop being one thing and start being another. I am a little chimpier, maybe, than she is. She is closer to the future of who we are than I am.
Rhetorical ambiguity leads to endless, hilarious confusion for kid
If you ever want to watch the modern equivalent of a Laurel and Hardy sketch, just hang out near me and Kina when we are having dinner together and I’m trying to explain common colloquialisms.
He realizes that she may have inherited the family book problem
When I think back on my childhood, I often remember my parents taking me to the bookstore, and so that is what I have been doing with Kina, now that she is a more avid reader. What I did not consider is the net cost of all those trips to the bookstore.
Kina’s house is filled with the lilting “PTBTHBTHBT” strains of dirtbikes and jackhammers
I just get so few opportunities to call out when Kina doesn’t know what a thing is called. “Construction Thumpers” is so good. Also, she really did spend the entire day just making raspberries.
Old pals do five trips on kid coaster, beg operator for extra run
My inner ear cannot tolerate more than one round on even the tamest kiddie coaster anymore, but once the girls figured out they could just ride together, it was all over for the operator of Coney Island’s famed Sea Serpent.
Kina accidentally comes up with better lyrics for basic party anthem “Funky Town”
Once you hear “Funky Town” as “Pumpkin Time” you will never go back. I can tell you this with real authority, since I have not stopped singing it in the last two days (to Kina’s consternation).
Kina’s competitive streak emerges in full-blown naval conflict
Every time Gia or her sister Diane come by to babysit, they bring a new game for Kina to play. This is one of her favorite things about having a babysitter—and probably the only thing that makes it possible for us to go on dates without her. She has never met a game she didn’t like, and she somehow always wins. Now we have to buy Battleship.
Futura and Kina watch Descendants while Mommy and Daddy hide in room
They really thought midnights would come and there would be so much mischief, but at the end of the night it was just pizza and exhaustion—but fun exhaustion. More sleepover news in the Sunday edition.
Kid explains the wackiness she shares with Daddy as rudimentary blood curse
My blood child wants you to know that she painted all the clothes in this piece herself—and she did quite a good job, if I do say so. I’m particularly fond of my tie-dye t-shirt at top right, which she achieved through my sophisticated “accidentally paint too much and blot off” technique. Like father, like daughter.
