Better early than otherwise, say I.

And a quick reminder for all of you about why we took this little trip in the first place. Fourteen years married and twenty years together. I promised her we’d laugh and eat, and here we are, still at it. Love you forever, Laurea.

Apparently she sells balloons now.

Highly recommend the furrynicular and its attendant amusements.

Gifts, ice cream, Tagalog, benedictions… What treasures didn’t Sunday hold?

I’m not exactly sure who contributed what to this Parade. Could be all Kina, might be her grandmother, possibly her great aunt? All I know is that this is the first Pawrade in Parade history.

It is showtime, according to our visiting editor. Mom and Dad are chilling with some pintxos in Spain as it happens. A brief view of that:

All’s well. There is a bidet.

The adults in our newsroom are boarding a plane to another country, while the publisher spends a few days of quality time with her Lala. Expect some chaos for a while, and maybe a few pulled feet.

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Kina has entered Mommy’s sock size spectrum and it is now basically impossible to know who wears anything in this house.

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“The Earth is actually the boss.”

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There is a documentary that you can watch on YouTube about Elizabeth Streb, the founding choreographer of the eponymous dance company that hosts Kina’s little chaos class. The kids’ class is a lot tamer than what you see in the film, to be fair. Like the children, the professional dancers throw themselves at mats and leap from towers. It is thrilling. Unlike the children, the adults court serious injury in service of their art. The kids just slide into each other at the bottoms of ramps.

Kina started going to Streb, whose studio is in our neighborhood, when she was two or three—the smallest kid in the smallest class. Just as she got going with it, the city shut down, and Streb with it. Though the dancers have been back for a while, it’s only very recently that they reopened for the kiddos. The fact that they are still around after that long break is a testament to their staying power (and no doubt some intense fundraising and real estate negotiation).

Now Kina is with the bigger kids, but still the smaller of the bigger kids. They still throw themselves off things, but I assume the things are taller now. When we asked her if she was one of the big kids, she replied, “No. There are bigger kids, and they are tweens, and the biggest kids are teens, and they swing on big monkey bars and wear belts that they take off when they fall on the bouncy castle but do not take them home.”

I have been staring at the picture all day and I still can’t find our house. The panorama is a marvel, but it requires patience, which our publisher is frequently lacking. So it goes.

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Nicky was here yesterday, building a mansion from magnatiles and installing a laundry room when Kina most needed him to inspect their fort in her bedroom. As they worked on their respective domiciles, the two of them nattered away loudly between rooms, calling to each other through the kitchen like a couple who had been married for some twenty years. At the end, both fortress and mansion complete, they met in Kina’s room and snacked on Pez. As we do.

You wouldn’t know it, but today’s Parade is inspired by a little grey-green mottled half-globe that she picked up on the street one day. The heart she painted above it is identical to the tattoo she drew on my bicep later in the evening. All curlicues and glistening enamel, this kid.

This is the era of birthday parties with thirty full-grown kids throwing rocks at garbage cans and making their own pizzas and diving into enormous sweaty piles of first-graders to grasp at candies spilled from the guts of a maybe-too-small piñata, under the the sort of darkness five-year-olds dare not wander.

I’m not sure I wouldn’t burst into tears either.

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Her jokes are making progress. Slow progress, but progress.

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My stunt post today was going to be “write a newsletter about evening rituals until, inevitably, Kina calls out from her bedroom ritualistically demanding specific dimnesses for both the living room and the kitchen, and then say ha ha see she did it just now” except that she beat me to the punch, exactly as I opened up the editor to start typing. She also asked me if it’s gonna rain, which it is not, and even if it were, would not contribute meaningfully to her sleep or the lack thereof.

This is what counts for ritual here.

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I’ve still never been to the Intrepid, but I hear the skittles are good.

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We are lucky to love all of Kina’s doctors, but her allergist in particular, because Kina’s allergies are weird and most doctor’s offices are horrid. Dr. Patel, on the other hand, is ultra-cool and sweet, and so Kina really looks forward to her annual visit, whose protocol of pricking arms with itchy substances should in any other case provoke revulsion. This year, Kina’s signature niche sesame allergy came up a little light, and so we have to find a convenient occasion to feed her a hamburger bun—stressful but promising. Kina got a lollipop out of the bargain, which is like icing on the cake. Fun at the allergist—who knew?

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She knows how to find what she likes. Keep up, will you?

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This is not even the first time she’s attempted to wear a balloon as clothing, for what it’s worth. I wasn’t at the birthday party where Kina obtained said balloon—home recovering, as you might imagine—but it sounded like a total blast, and with the shine of New York Fashion Week still on the streets, Kina’s emergence from her friend’s birthday ball with painted face and balloon bet hit the scene like a ton of bricks.

As for me, I’m slowly healing up. Thanks to those of you who sent kind notes today. Will be making my way to a dentist so that I can get various teeth removed and evaluated tomorrow. In the meantime, Kina “still has [her] sea parent”, in her words, which comes as a great relief to all of us.

Hot gossip! I crashed my bike yesterday after work—Kina nowhere nearby, to be clear—and spent five hours in the ER getting my lip stitched and trying to account for my teeth. The publisher left me a sweet voice message on my phone after her (very recently terrified) mother assured her that she still had a father, and it left me feeling all sorts of complicated things about being a parent and a New Yorker and a bike commuter. She seems nonplussed by the whole affair, which has made it easier for me to work my way through this first day of recovery. As ever, she is a blessing and a beacon.

No broken bones, no concussion (as far as anyone can tell), a bit gnarly in the face in ways that will resolve themselves, and a little more gnarly in the teeth in ways that dentistry will help. I am still a father and the editor of this newspaper.

Remake streets for people. Watch your step. Wear a helmet.

It is hard for me to explain how this fundraiser works, but the kids are super passionate about it, and I can tell you for sure that quarters are bad.

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Shorter days, darker mornings. 6:45 is still 6:45.

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