Kina spent like fifteen minutes carefully drawing and coloring this enormous portrait of herself to correct my portrait style, so I just made an edition out of it. She later scolded me for disregarding it as a guide for my subsequent illustrations.

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I remember telling Laurea, when Kina was very small and demanded we never leave her alone in her room, that eventually she would absolutely insist on being left alone in her room and make a real point of slamming the door to separate herself from us when she was feeling extra spicy about our parenting skills. We figured, like naive first-time parents, that we had at least until middle school before the first door was slammed in our house, but reader, we were wrong.

The teens come at you quickly. Sometimes in just five years.

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Georgia and Kina demanded a play date literally at the beginning of kindergarten, and they finally got it. We had to convince them to go home separately by promising not to wait another year.

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For her Uncle Ken’s birthday last night, Kina busted out her finest polyester princess dress and two pristine white satin evening gloves. We were meeting the birthday boy at a restaurant mainly known for its local take on the Bloomin’ Onion, baked pasta, and a chicken fried steak the size of a pizza, which would not seem to be the sort of venue at which white gloves are de rigeur, but they went over quite nicely with the staff nonetheless.

It bears noting that Kina did not eat with the gloves on, because that would be rude, but she did don them after dessert for a stroll down Vanderbilt Avenue, where she waved regally to the outdoor diners and bicyclists. We did eventually cross paths with another pink-gowned princess heading the opposite direction, and these two scions of nobility nodded at each other in passing, satin on satin in the dusk.

It was about a month ago that I proposed a theory of Kina’s late-night awakenings. If she had watched a particularly creepy movie (like Spirited Away, in this case) during the day—even if she had seemingly enjoyed every moment of it—Kina would wake up in terror the subsequent night.

Today, Kina confirmed that theory, cementing her inheritance from Laurea of good-scary-bad-scary vibes—the kind that has you selecting the “okay for monsters to touch me” headbands at the haunted house on Halloween and then screaming for help at every jump scare. It must be thrilling, but I can do without the nightmares.

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Yes, it’s creepy, but isn’t it sweet?

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I feel like this is true for me as well, but hour by hour.

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Sometimes—just sometimes—she is also agreeing with me.

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Ha ha just kidding the news is like a firehose of childhood factoids, even without the classroom goss.

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I don’t think I have ever seen a human being enter a medieval art museum with the same intensity as they might a laser tag arena, but this is Kina we are talking about, after all, and she was dressed as a princess, which maybe explains the vibe.

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Last year’s school family meetup was a little different from this year’s, in that Kina now knows more or less everybody milling around in McCarren Park—including her friend Runa from kindergarten and a little Venn diagram of past classrooms and music teachers. Funnily enough, Kina spent the whole day at last year’s family meetup with Runa, having only just met her; back then, the two of them decamped with uncommon ease to a random piece of playground equipment, forgetting their parents entirely.

This year, they decamped again with ease (now common) and strolled around the entire park together on secret adventures involving purses and popcorn. School has begun.

You haven’t lived until your first grader has come home to introduce you to this new game she invented called Truth or Dare, which means you either have to spout a fact or do a dare—neither of which is super consequential in her version of things. It’s just a fun choice.

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Kina has been asking me to make little paper first-place ribbons to give to friends and new teachers. She colors them in with crayon and draws a little “1” on each of them. She places them in the pockets of her backpack for when she needs to recognize the most important people in her life. I have never received such a ribbon.

One day, maybe.

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I love a first day of school edition. Never fails to capture her joy, bravery, and elegance in the face of growth. We’ve been building up to this day at the bottom of the edition for a long time now, and she’s felt it. Today, she put on her little jumper and crisp white shirt for the first time—a dramatic shift from her laissez-faire, rainbow-themed apparel from kindergarten—and stepped out of the house for her first numbered year of school. There, among the big kids, she found her classmates (old and new) clustered near the edge of the playground-for-the-little-ones and gave them all big hugs. Her new teachers gave her a sticker with her name on it and she wandered off into the crowd with an ease we’ve come to expect, but which is entirely different from her demeanor at drop-off last year, when she sent us off longingly from inside the kindergarten fence. Today, she knew where she was, who she was, and how to navigate the place. Walking away was like drifting off to sleep.

Mommy and I went to get a coffee, looked at our pictures, and trusted the big kid in the beige jumper and yellow shoes to figure it out on her own.

Happy first day of school to all who celebrate.

There is probably no theme more typical of this summer than Kina’s sudden escalation in bravery. In the last two months, she’s taken up dunking, swimming, climbing various nets and logs at the playground, talking to dogs, and riding thrill rides at Coney Island (including a Tilt-a-Whirl ride that had Daddy close to emptying his guts). Yesterday’s visit to an adventure gym was no exception to this trend, and Kina spent the entire day with her friends there jumping, falling, and careening in ways that kindergarten Kina never would.

We are so proud of her.

On the topic of pride, how proud we are of the child who, tomorrow morning, will become a first grader! She finally made it across the margin! Kudos to our tiny publisher, who never fails to remind her newsroom who signs the checks.

Fitting that we were able to spend part of the last official day of summer with some grandparents, all of whom have made this season an exceptional one.

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It is worth noting that what we thought would be our last big water trip of the weekend (and possibly the summer) was trumped at the last minute by yet another trip to the local pool this morning. Laurea says we’re going to the pool again next weekend, which further demonstrates the prominence that water and swimming played in Kina’s summer vacation this year.

At the beginning of the summer, Kina merely loved the ocean, and now she adores the water. She went from a real fear of getting her face wet to being able to swim to me in a pool from several feet away—head submerged the entire time. From floaties to none, jumpers to dunkers, this kid is a true water child.

And I, as official sea parent, have spent nearly every minute of the child’s water life this summer with her in the ocean, gasping for air between dunkers and dragged around by a cackling five-year-old from sand to swells.

And with that, just four more days until the start of school, and the end of a memorable, noticeable, present summer. We last visited Stylist Christina in July, which seems not that long ago, but is definitely long ago. She continues to top herself in braid techniques with this magnificent criss-cross pattern that I wish she’d teach me to reproduce at home. I tried to convince her to teach braiding lessons; we’ll see if she steps up to the plate.

Then Kina made some cookies with her mother, mixed up a bunch of different ice creams into a so-called Super Flavor Deluxe, and rode her bike to McCarren Park for a jaunt in the swings. Not pictured: Everything else we did.

This means Kina has visited the Statue of Liberty one (1) more time than her father has in the 26 years he has lived in New York.

(That would be zero (0) times.)

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Somehow, Kina ended up introducing Hannah to Central Park for the very first time yesterday, showing her all the cool things you can do with boulders and laying on blankets under trees.

Six more days!?

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