I thought I was onto something the other day when I tricked Kina into accepting plums as a special treat, forgetting that I also like plums, and that my progeny and I might enter into competition for one of the world’s finest fruits. The fact that I woke this morning to find all the plums pitted out and half-chewed is really the extent of this story, but I feel it’s always notable to call out a creative project’s first William Carlos Williams joke.

Kid Apologizes for “Spooking Out” and Hitting Daddy

It has been interesting to watch Kina coping with her own anger lately—a transition that feels like the first step out of a long period of mindless tantrums. I have started to be more clear about my expectations with her, especially as it relates to treats and TV. This sometimes leads to lengthy screaming tantrums when I ask her to pick up a mess of Legos before playing hide and seek, or to eat three bites of dinner before eating dessert. While these freakouts (or “spook outs”, apparently) have been part of our lives for a while now, they are now often followed by a heartfelt apology and an explanation of why she was angry. I always try to take a moment to acknowledge her apology and find a way to offer her some grace, but I am constantly taken aback. This is, to be clear, more mature than I often am in the waning throes of anger. Is it possible to raise somebody to be better than you? Is it possible that we are better than we think?

dad

We did not have a traditional Labor Day—because all traditions get a reset this year—and since Laurea is still working on an event, Kina and I spent much of the day together. In an effort to experience some semblance of novelty, I decided we would avoid all playgrounds, which led to our sitting in the middle of a vast swath of artificial turf in McCarren Park, watching frisbees fly over our heads and playing the Tackle Game. As it turns out, two people can spend hours playing the Tackle Game, as long as one of you is willing to repeatedly walk fifty paces away and tackle the other person, and that the other person is comfortable sitting down and being tackled. That, in a nutshell, basically describes Kina and me. I think we annoyed the frisbee people by not “playing sports”, but let’s face it: they were throwing a frisbee, and my child was running full tilt towards me in an effort to knock me on my ass. I don’t know a lot about American sports, but that feels like it passes a lot more tests than frisbee does.

“Close Your Eyes and Believe What I Gave You”

All weekend, Kina gathered sticks, stones, and acorns. As she collected these objects, she carefully placed them in a snack cup (which, as a snack cup—loyal readers will recall—had very recently contained seaweed). This morning, she carefully removed each item from the snack cup and placed it in our hands, urging us to “believe what I gave you”. I imagine (though I cannot confirm) that this phrase exists in opposition to the statement, “I can’t believe what you gave me”. In fact, I could believe that Kina offered me a pine cone this morning, and it still felt like a real heartfelt gift. I don’t ask for much, really—just a strangely damp pinecone on a Monday morning, proffered by a solemn and whispery preschooler.

I hope you had as good a Labor Day as we did.

dad

I remember when Laurea first told me she had let Kina watch an episode of She-Ra: Princesses of Power, having discovered it on Netflix one morning at 5:45 AM. If I recall correctly, I think I said, “No way.” We’d been holding the line on non-educational pandemic children’s television for over three months, and I wasn’t about to let it slide for a remake of some ‘80s shlock, even if Laurea liked it as a kid. But, reader, I am here to tell you—one and a half months and five seasons later—that the new She-Ra is freaking amazing. When I draw this paper every morning, Kina and I agree on a single episode of television for her to watch, and for weeks now, it has been She-Ra. In the last week, as we’ve approached the series finale, I have found it legitimately difficult to actually draw the paper while she watches it. “Wait—what’s happened to Catra?” I might ask, or, “When did Hordak become good?” I celebrated Entrapta and Catra’s respective returns to She-Ra’s side as though they were candidates in a political campaign.

It’s rare to find a kids’ cartoon with real character arcs and complex psychologies, let alone one that agrees to find its conclusion after five seasons, and that doesn’t even begin to address how the show centers and highlights multiple genders, sexualities, and races in its storytelling. She-Ra had an all-female writers’ room and barely any men in the regular cast; if it were anything other than an action cartoon on Netflix, it’d be a cult favorite—and maybe it is. Since I first posted about it on July 19th, several friends have divulged their obsession with She-Ra, and it’s clear we’re relatively late to the game in this household. Kina and I watched the two-part series finale this weekend, unencumbered by the newspaper. I won’t spoil the ending, but there’s a big kiss and somebody saves the universe. I wish I could follow them for the rest of their lives; their world turns out pretty good—and certainly much more verdant than ours, at the moment.

Puppy Is Nervous and Wants People To Take Care of Him

I mean, doesn’t this basically describe us all? We are all Puppy. Find somebody you can take care of—and who will, in turn, take care of you. We call Kina.

dad

On long days, I like to take Kina aside to watch videos from The Before Times: indoor play spaces, school drop-offs, grandparent visits, birthday parties. It’s kind of amazing how we’ve managed to hold it together without any of those things—or, I suppose, how we are actively managing to hold it together—but what’s even more astonishing is how much this child has grown in the last year. In videos from last May, she looks as tiny as a sprite (I sometimes wonder how to proportion triangular Kina in the illustrations here—is she more equilateral or isosceles?) and has the voice and vocabulary of a baby becoming a kid. Yesterday, Kina and I watched one video over and over. In it, we are at the dining room table. She blows maniacally on a bowl of buttered tortellini, turns to me and asks “iss too hot?”; I tell her to give it a try, and as she takes a tentative bite, she mutters “good temp-a-chur”. This is a child who, in a few months, would walk into a classroom for the first time—a classroom in which she wouldn’t even finish the year, but would nonetheless become a real kid-like human being. Kina watched and rewatched that video because she thought her voice was hilarious, but I rewatched it because it feels like a hundred years ago, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how so much time has passed, how she’s blossomed so much in a situation that feels so desperately barren. Keeping these newspapers as a diary is a reminder of what that change has looked like over the last four months, but these videos feel like a missive from a distant continent. This is what life is like there? How can I get back to that? If this is how toddlers change as they make the journey, what has happened to us?

Lots of work went into this morning’s Parade, with Laurea painting all the things that have been making us happy lately: candles, cantaloupe, ice cream, fresh juices, long drives. Kina was prolific with the watercolors, producing four of her own paintings. She selected the one pasted at the center of all our little pleasures and topped off the cover with a well-selected Pizza Party! sticker.

Hope you all have an invigorating or peaceful Labor Day—whichever feels right to you this year. Kina will continue her grand tour of playgrounds and probably demand dessert, which we will likely give to her. A special treat!

dad

Kina is really into sending people messages and letters these days—or at least she’s really into the idea of messages. I’ll be sitting in the living room, and she’ll walk up and start dictating a note to me—something encouraging for her babysitter, the doctor, one of my siblings, or herself in the future. It could be that these little recitations are things I should actually write down and send—none of them are anything less than heartbreakingly sweet, and her doctor probably would say “Awwww” in response. Have you gotten any mail lately that told you how much you were loved? Has a toddler told you to be nice to others in a text message recently? These feel like useful shafts of light in the darkness. I’ll try not to keep them to myself.

Ballerina, Denied Recital, Wears Tutu Nonetheless

Before the lockdown, Kina took three dance classes. She liked the teacher, seemed to enjoy the class, and is clearly right in the Dance Fanatic demographic. In early March, they announced a group recital for June of this year and took orders for pink tutus, which we purchased—as all first-time dance parents must. Fast forward to May, which had us sitting outside the dance studio to retrieve a package containing her tutu and a vague promise to revisit the recital plan in late June. Fast forward to July, when Kina asked what the tutu was. Fast forward to this morning, when she insisted on wearing “the costume” around the house, twirling and leaping to “Baby Shark”. I expected her to want to wear the thing all day, but she backtracked after a while when the sequins started to annoy her. In May, I think I would have been really sad to see this morning’s dance play out, but today I’m just happy she could wear “the costume” at all, and that we have a kid who’s happy and into leaping. “Lucky to be here,” is all I kept thinking.

Went in hard on the portrait today with two things I have real trouble drawing: Open eyes and open mouths. Gotta be bad to get good.

dad

All the rain and heat seems to have produced a bumper crop of mosquitos in Brooklyn, some of which are feasting on our child. I’ve explained to her that mosquitos are bugs—mostly invisible—that sometimes bite us and make us itchy. She seems more curious than horrified by this, but asked nonetheless that I bandage one of the bites on her finger. As I did, she asked me what other animals bite. This was a question I felt I’d rather she answer for herself, and she replied, “Well, lions bite”—the kind of dangerous but nuanced truth that is largely irrelevant to a city kid. Later that evening, as we dropped off a painting downstairs for her friend Gabrielle, Kina asked if she wanted to see her mosquito bite. Gabs looked closely at the Band-Aid and gasped dramatically, which prompted Kina to reassure her that it was only a mosquito bite and not a lion bite and therefore nothing to worry about. I’m glad I’m raising a kid who understands that it’s all relative.

Kid Is Basically Exhausted

We live on the third floor of a tenement building and have often wished we had an elevator—especially since we had a baby, and more so as that baby has turned into a kid. We often get to the top of the stairs, open the door, rip off our masks, and stand there panting for a bit as we catch our breath. Kina, who really has no problem at all climbing the stairs (because she only weighs forty pounds soaking wet) has started to imitate us, bending over dramatically with her hands on her knees and going “Whooo! Whooo! Gosh, those stairs make me tired!” It’s humiliating. I need to exercise.

Hope you all have a good Labor Day weekend. Will continue through the holiday as planned, but trying to keep these newsletter sessions to under fifteen minutes for the next few days. Have a hot dog for us. Wear your masks. Love you!

dad

Big food day here at The Daily Kina, leading with an investigation into the extremely high-frequency consumption of dessert in our newsroom. We’re going feral here—Laurea is working some late nights in support of a long remote festival—which means that I’m leaning hard into delivery and dessert. We’ve done a substantial run on ice cream this week, but last night’s pasta delivery didn’t offer any frozen confections, and I am in any case a sucker for pudding (or, as they say in Italy, budino) as a lazy stand-in for soft serve. Kina was skeptical but ultimately won over by its quintessential dessert vibes. What I did not account for, one hour before her bedtime, was the effect of highly-concentrated sugar and dark chocolate on her energy levels. The nightly reading of Go, Dog, Go! was extra ridiculous (“Daddy, look! The dog has ice cream! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaaaa!”) and getting her into bed was like herding crickets. All of which is to say: I spent twenty minutes tonight explaining to her why dessert was not an every-night thing but a special treat, which brings me to our next headline:

Seaweed Declared Snack, Not Special Treat

I’m not sure we’ve really talked about “special treat” here, but the term dates back to the earliest days of the pandemic, when we finally succumbed to using candy to bribe our child to do things like poop in the potty, participate in video calls with her grandparents, and chill for, like, three minutes. From the outset, we’ve referred to any sort of candy or gummy as a “special treat”. This was a crucial error, because without the broader context of what “special” means, she believes that this is just what candy is called. Accordingly, we are now subject multiple times a day to long wheedling litanies of “Can I have a special treat? Can I have a special treat? Can I have a special treeeeeeeat?” until we cough up the gummy. With that in mind, we’re constantly trying to swap in something moderately healthy in response, which leads to semantic debates about whether or not perfect in-season strawberries are special treats. This brings us to seaweed, the rare actually-bourgeois-Brooklyn thing Kina does ask for, which I bought in various preparations at a Japanese supermarket two weekends ago. She asked for some this morning as she watched Winnie and Wilbur, seemingly content for a while, until she declared that she needed a special treat. When I told her that it seemed like she had a perfectly good treat in hand, she patiently explained to me that seaweed was a snack with no particular value as a special treat—which makes sense if you adopt her worldview (as we all probably should) that we need frequent special treats to make the day bearable. You deserve a special treat. Kina deserves a special treat. Please have a treat.

Today, it has been four months since our first edition. I put all the originals in museum boxes this afternoon so that they wouldn’t get ripped or damp or lost. When I finish with all of this, I’ll get them all photographed properly (on something nicer than the black trunk next to our bed). It was a pleasure to hold each of them today—a record of what is happening to us, to her. Glad you can be privy to it, too.

dad

Yesterday, the city announced that school, originally scheduled to start September 10th, would start instead on September 21st. This has little bearing on our plan, which is to throw up our hands and “send” her to “Pre-K” remotely. Two weeks ago, Bill de Blasio announced that schools could implement outdoor learning plans—setting up tents outside buildings so that kids and teachers could share more thoroughly-ventilated spaces (an actually good idea, delivered far too late). Given the ongoing stalemate between the principals’ union, the teachers’ union, and the Department of Education—which may or may not lead to wildcat strikes (who knows!) on or near the first day of school—it seems implausible that schools will invest a ton of effort in sourcing and building tents. All of this chaos, on top of the warning that entire classrooms (with their families) would need to quarantine for fourteen days in the event of a sick teacher or child, led us to our decision to give the ol’ Zoom-based preschool a try and wait for more sophisticated testing protocols to come along.

My friend and NYT Parenting co-founder Jess wrote a beautiful newsletter about keeping your kids excited about school today, which I would characterize as a provocation to all of us to do our best and know that our best is all we can do. I’m lucky that Kina has our time and attention (because we have that time and attention to spare), and I’m not terribly worried about learning loss for this kid at this age in our situation—though she and I both wish that she could spend real quality time with other kids—but there’s plenty of other kids who aren’t in Kina’s situation and stand to really suffer because of the city’s incapacity to plan, prepare, and pay for the welfare of kids. Their parents will do their best, too, while everybody else goes to the gym and our mayor refuses to articulate any sort of option to help the city recover. No, I’m not frustrated, why do you ask?

“It Feels Comfy When Dogs Smell My Leg”

This morning, Kina declared that she loved dogs most of all the animals. We tried to really dwell on that, asking her about her favorite dog size (medium), dog hair length (looooong), color (brown). As dog friendliness is concerned, she’s not a fan of licking the face, but does quite like a dog that smells her leg because it makes her feel comfy. (We have seen her swoon when dogs sniff her ankles, it is true.) Any dog that fails to do this may be entertaining, but does not comfort her. Laurea and I have sworn to each other that we will not succumb to adopting a dog, and that if Kina really wants to spend time with dogs, she can start a dog-walking business and do it outside. Still, at 8 AM, when your kid tells you that she would be comfy if a dog were smelling her leg, it does make you question your priors. We’re still not getting a dog.

dad

I am not going to complain about the size of our Brooklyn apartment. It is far bigger than it could be, and I have friends who have raised more children in less space than this. But, still. It can be challenging to share your apartment with a roommate who not only has no boundaries of her own, but creates arbitrary boundaries for you. We spend most of our time between two and twenty feet from each other—in one among our austere selection of rooms—and yet the pandemic has gone in some ways better than expected, at least in the area of family space discord. We’re managing well in the house we have, even as our friends decamp to homes near the beach with two—nay, three—bathrooms. But even as we envy those friends, we are grateful to weather this together in the space we’ve loved for so long, to dwell in innocence, not having eaten of the Backyard Tree of Knowledge. I sense, among those dear departed friends, a genie-out-of-the-bottle situation, the cat out of the bag; once unfettered by multiple-dwelling apartment walls, I can imagine it is difficult to get stuffed back into them.

But even the smallest among us needs an extra room sometimes, which leads our protagonist to build corner pillow caves on our bed every morning and demand we draw close, so as to be denied admittance. The stuffies may enter, and even Mommy on a good day, but Daddy stays outside. The “exceptly” here is notable, not just because it would seem to include all of humanity, but because it explicitly carves out a space for her in the cave. Which is to say, Kina’s imaginary clubs are so exclusive that even she requires an invitation.

Kid Evacuates Balloon Collection As Mommy Blowdries Hair

The only comment I have on this headline is that I woke this morning to discover five new balloons—three filled with water, two with air—ensconced in cups throughout the house. Her project continues.

dad

For years, I’ve admired the masterfully-crafted Heckscher Playground near the southern edge of Central Park. A complex of moats, castles, swings, and fountains, this is a playground for the playground aficionado. It’s well-maintained, squishy where it needs to be squishy, and just dangerous enough to keep a kid enthralled for hours—which it did yesterday, for Kina, on her first visit. It is even better than the last billionaire-financed Conservancy playground we visited in Central Park! I count us lucky to be able to make our way into these rarified (and yet still public) play spaces, though I desperately wish Kina had her own local stone castles to leap from. Given the plaque on the $10,000 bench we sat on yesterday—donated by the owner of the New York Jets and heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune—that seems like a far-off possibility. It feels increasingly unlikely that the city will have the discretionary budget to spare on playground upgrades for kids in underserved neighborhoods, and given recent articles swooning over the departure of well-heeled families to the suburbs, the tax base to fund them is growing ever slimmer. Still, we abide. Kina saw her friend Stanley at Rodney Playground today, which she seems to have found more memorable than leaping off of castles, much as I covet them. I will remind readers of this newsletter that they are welcome to join the Friends of Rodney Playground, a still-nonexistent conservancy for Brooklyn’s most BQE-adjacent play environment. We are selling benches.

Hand Expert Consults Handbook

I saw Kina sitting quietly on the couch yesterday, staring intently at her open palms. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, “It’s my handbook. I am reading about hands.” And now I desperately want to write Kina an actual illustrated handbook about the safe and proper operation of hands. Somebody get me a book deal.

dad

Of the many things wrong about this time in history, the absence of hugs as a salve against existential pain is a notable insult. In this house, of course, we still hug liberally, but there are many people whom Kina could be hugging right now and are currently, tragically, hugless. I don’t take our child’s hugs for granted—one of the earliest rituals we developed during the pandemic was a nightly provocation to “hug me forever and ever and never never let go”, which Kina would just about deliver on, squeezing me by the neck for minutes on end. The hug would always end with Kina saying “Okay now get offa me", but the cure was effective nonetheless. She is storing up hugs for the proverbial winter ahead of us, for the family she loves and sees only at a distance. As a beneficiary of that hug endowment, I can assure you all that her accounts are deep and overflowing. Writing this brings to mind one of my favorite articles in the last few months—a primer on how to hug in a pandemic; use it sparingly at your discretion, should you and your loved ones require it.

Doctor Is Good At Vaccinations

We have covered shots before, in an edition from May 9th of this year—before this newsletter existed. At the time, a local doctor said, “Okay, this shot’s not gonna hurt a little bit. It’ll hurt so so so so much.” We at The Daily Kina wanted to note that this same pediatrician (whose patients include Daddy, Mommy, Puppy, and Simone) is now much better at giving shots, and her patients now feel only a tiny chimp at the moment of injection.

Kina decided that today’s Parade would have a “birthday party” theme. Laurea made the balloons on what we thought would be a yellow cover, but then Kina decided to go her own way and draw a “big orange face” (complete with sympathetic eyebrows!) so we compiled the whole thing on blue. It feels very 2020-festive and is one of my faves so far.

Muchas, muchas ciao—

dad

As an avid shower person, I sometimes forget how awesome it is to take a bath every night—which is strange, in that I do give Kina nightly baths. Lately, she’s been mildly obsessed with the inner logic of drains (see also: “Why Is the Drain Like a Magnet?”) and is currently puzzling through the matter of whirlpools. Why are some whirlpools big and others small? Why is it that a whirlpool, disrupted, forms anew? Is it possible to make a whirlpool with one’s hand? What if one twirls one’s hand around faster? It’s fun to think about all this with her, because I know literally nothing at all about whirlpools. Approaching a natural mystery from a perspective almost equally as naïve as your kid’s is a rare treat, in that you’re both figuring it out as you go (again, see also: “Where Does Coronavirus Come From?”, but with less existential dread—unless you really hate the idea of whirlpools). Kina and I are not much for long baths, but we have started to wait around for the evening’s first whirlpool, just to talk about it, and to howl like drunk frat boys when we see a particularly impressive one. If you don’t have a kid, it’s well worth taking a bath to see it.

Quick Reunion Is Had With Long-Lost Friend Niki

Kina’s friend Nikola has been out of the city for a while, and the two of them have missed each other tremendously throughout this very long year. As mentioned in an earlier edition (“Nikola Plays New Role in Bedtime Story Plots”), Nikola has become the main protagonist of Kina’s nightly stories—often landing in peculiar pinches like getting stuck in washing machines, waking up too early, or staying too long at Panda’s house. So when we learned that Niki would be coming to town, Kina was thrilled, and stayed thrilled up until the very moment she walked outside to see him. What ensued was a classic overwhelmed-preschooler moment, in which the children both refused to engage with each other and burst into tears because they weren’t engaging with each other. It was the saddest thing to see, because I know that both of them (like most preschoolers these days) aren’t getting anything near the daily quotient of Other Kids that they require, and Nikola and his mom were leaving town later that day. We vowed to get them together again sometime in the next few months, but parted ways. Later that day, Hannah and Kina ran across Niki on the street, and the two of them smoothed things over. I received several photos of two smiling kids on scooters, playing like it was 2019 and enjoying themselves in the way you’d expect for friends who have known each other since they were two months old. We miss them a lot, Niki and his mom, and it gives me all the more fuel I need to help us get through this so we can see them again.

dad

In the twelve minutes I just spent watching an overwrought video about the biggest whirlpools on Earth and reading the canonical Wikipedia article on whirlpools, I learned more about them than I—a person who has long assumed there are several 250-foot-wide whirlpools just permanently spinning in the ocean—have ever even casually contemplated. It turns out bathtub whirlpools are mostly different from what mariners think of as whirlpools, and while largish permanent whirlpools aren’t the width of a football field and won’t pull you into a drain at the bottom of the ocean, they are dangerous! Don’t mess with whirlpools!

I knew this question was coming. I had months to prepare for it, and yet I was unprepared last night when Kina turned to me at the dinner table and asked “Where does Coronavirus come from?”

I obviously don’t feel like I have to explain the entirety of this to her, or how viruses evolve and pass from species to species and person to person, but I do feel I owe her a thoughtful answer to things like this. As I thought about it, though, I found myself stumbling into the fallacies I’d forgotten from earlier this year. This virus doesn’t come from a place, or from a thing. There is no virus factory (or, at least, no one virus factory) or virus mommy and daddy. There was no single turning point at which the virus that got us sick in March came to be. Viruses evolve until they work, falling all over themselves in ways we never see. Noise becomes language when the noise makes sense—a thing that Kina has discovered alongside us hundreds of times over the last four years. This virus makes sense to our bodies, and to American society in particular—a virus particularly potent among the inconsiderate. But what do I tell her?

After work yesterday, she asked to watch the new episode of Daniel Tiger, which addresses this unique moment and its difficulties for both children and their parents. Daniel wants to go to the local neighborhood carnival, but it’s cancelled this year. Daniel misses his Grandpère and his friends, asking for each of them to visit the house—and being told each time that it isn’t possible. Daniel sees his father working on clocks in the living room, and wants to play, but his father asks him to find something to do on his own. Stitching all this together is a medley of familiar Daniel Tiger songs that talk about sadness and family and anger, with one song called “Grownups Keep You Safe”, which seems as much a reminder for parents to focus on staying calm and strong in the midst of chaos. One line in particular quotes Fred Rogers’ reminder, in the wake of 9/11, to “look for the helpers”—advice for preschoolers that adults often forget is their call to action. We are supposed to keep them safe, and to build a society of professional helpers who will keep them safe.

So, when Kina asked me where Coronavirus came from, I told her that I didn’t know, but that we know how to protect ourselves, that we can be safer if we wear our masks and wash our hands, and that her Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Yeh-Yeh and Lala and Lolo Tim and Ken and Andrew are all doing that so that we don’t get sick. I told her that if we are all careful, that we’ll be able to see the people we love soon, and that we love her very much. She took it all in and then asked for a chia jelly, so I suppose it worked out. Your mileage may vary.

dad

We bought Mister Bunny at a toy store two doors down from Veselka on 9th Street about two years ago. Kina’s only puppet, Mister Bunny is typically caustic and rude, but shows occasional flashes of real empathy; he’ll be there for you in a pinch, a consolation when you are inconsolable. This morning, while I was dressing Kina, he hopped onto her arm and let down his hair a bit for a little song and dance, a touch of the old cha-cha-cha. We don’t really get to see Mister Bunny that much these days—he’s a bit of a supporting player in the menagerie—but I’ve always appreciated his brusque Brooklyn-Catskills attitude and his plush little tummy. There’s no real essay here; I just wanted you to know Mister Bunny.

Poop Looks Like a Little Witch Hat

I didn’t see the poop in question, but I could hear both real urgency in Kina’s call to witness it and stunned amazement in Laurea’s voice once she’d seen it. It must have been the spitting image.

Child Chunkin on Bread and Olive Oil Again

As I finished writing this headline (“Child Chunkin on Bread and Olive Oil”)—the last of four—in green marker ink, I realized suddenly that I’d written it before. This is the first time in 146 editions of The Daily Kina that this has happened, which says a lot about both how prolifically ridiculous she is and how much she loves bread and olive oil. Rather than rewrite the whole edition, I added the word “Again” to the end of the headline. History will look fondly on this editorial decision, I’m sure.

dad

One of the great things about Kina is the way in which she radiates pure confidence. It is hard to radiate anything approximating confidence in 2020, so when you see somebody pull it off the way she does, it really hits. Of late, she’s taken to striking poses at random—bold, fearless, confrontational stances that leave you stunned and asking how to pay for a subscription. Sitting on the couch? Expect a hand on a cocked hip. Walking in the door? Warrior pose. Disagreeing with your child? Back turned, double hands on hip; extended right hand to hold top of chair—you’re getting a talking-to. I walked into the living room this morning to find her throwing her hands up in the air and running headlong into the couch. She is animalistic. Periodically, I mirror her, and I can feel the balance of endorphins and adrenaline level out. She’s onto something, for real.

Seeking Novelty, Daddy + Kid Take a Drive in Rain

I had to step away from the computer after work yesterday, so I decided to take Kina out for a whirl in the car to get some fried chicken. Five minutes in, we hit the traffic doldrums, backed up forever as the skies opened up. Kina and I sat at a full stop under the J train for twenty minutes listening to rain pelt the roof of the car. She asked about the windshield wipers, if we would get wet from the sunroof (nope), whether I would carry her into the restaurant (yep). At Peaches Hothouse, in Bed Stuy, we pulled over to the curb and I unbuckled her from her car seat while the lower half of my body got drenched. She pulled up her collar over her face as we ran into the restaurant, grabbed our chicken, and returned—soaking wet—to the car. By the time we crawled home, the chicken was lukewarm, but Kina’s mac and cheese was still cheesey (“Cheddar cheese!”) and we were out of our rut. At bedtime, she told me, “I had a nice time with you today, Daddy.” Felt great.

Good bye, and dream big!

dad

When Kina says “night” here, she really means “before dawn”, as she flits about the apartment making mischief and “doing activity books”. This has, of course, been a recurring storyline here at The Daily Kina, and requires no further detail, but I will note that she has lived her solitary morning life in relatively quiet ways lately (no skritchety-scratching, no knocking, fewer cacophonous emptyings of Lego boxes).

And yet: a twist! Laurea has worked late for the last few nights, so I’ve put Kina to bed without Mommy around. The evenings have been pretty manageable on the whole, but the real surprise comes at dawn, when she calls out to us at the agreed-upon hour of 6:24 from her bed. It seems that Kina’s morning activity run is only relevant when both of us are around at bedtime, and that by my putting her to bed alone, we stand to gain half an hour of uninterrupted sleep. This is, you understand, a huge revelation.

Can we hope for a 6:30 wakeup? What impact can the adults of this household make on the world with so much extra slumber time? Can I just have Laurea stand outside the building every night until 7:45 PM? Reader, stay tuned.

Child Unexpectedly Enjoys Mushrooms

I was surprised, when ordering dinner for the two of us last night, that Kina chose a mushroom quesadilla for her meal. Careful readers will recall from the mushroom kit storyline that Kina does not like mushrooms, picking them meticulously from every slice of pizza and stir fry. I explained to her three times that a mushroom quesadilla has mushrooms inside—real mushrooms—and she nodded patiently at me. I asked if she would eat the mushrooms, and she assured me that she would. When the quesadilla arrived, I put it in front of her, and she opened it up (as she does all quesadillas) to promptly consume everything inside it—mushrooms and all. I have no idea what it is about the quesadilla that makes mushrooms acceptable (I know, for example, that if I were to put a slice of mushroom pizza in front of her, she’d have us disassemble it), but I felt just a little bit better watching her eat a quesadilla from the inside out like a little alien, knowing that her meal consisted of at least one ingredient that isn’t cheese. Tiny victories.

I hope you’re all not sad or sick, and that you’re managing to afford this publication at its steep daily rate of $22—except if you are in fact sad or sick, in which case Kina gives you a pass today.

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Our family is generally an ardent farmer’s market family, but we missed out on much of June and July as the crowds got heavier and lines at the Williamsburg Greenmarket ballooned. (For pandemic safety reasons, you can’t touch the produce yourself, which means every customer gets a personal shopper—a nice touch, but not great for throughput.) Opting out of early summer produce, though, meant missing out on the height of strawberry season, which was a huge bummer in the midst of a much larger bummer. It was a pleasant surprise last week, then, to find at the Union Square Greenmarket exactly one vendor with dozens of pints of sweet little Tristar strawberries. Kina noshed on a few tiny berries at the playground, eating through the rest over the next couple of days. We’d find her watching Octonauts with strawberry juice on her chin, blissfully unaware of the aftermath of her feast. Laurea found some more at the market this weekend—a late-season double-header!—and served up a few for breakfast today as a rare seasonal treat in the midst of an otherwise undifferentiated lump of days. Kina’s subsequent reflection on her preferred berry size is forgivable, but only because I take the blame for plying her for three years with flavorless, apple-sized, off-season Californian beastberries. I feel like there’s a moment in your development as a mature human being at which you discover that small berries are good berries and learn to leave the bland giants as traps for philistine babies. Kina’s not there yet, but we are working with her, so long as this languorous season holds. I am patient and will enjoy the little berries for myself in the meantime.

As the other headlines suggest, we went to the ocean again yesterday, which may or may not be the last time we go for the season. Kina avoided crabs, played with larvae and her friend Toma, and complained about sunscreen. I won’t pretend that I didn’t wish we owned a house outside the city, can’t say that working remotely from the beach for the last three months wouldn’t have been peaceful and nourishing, but we feel an incredible loyalty to Jacob Riis and the beach park that bears his name. I’m fiercely proud that we stayed in this city over the last five months, but can’t say we could have weathered it without the ocean. It has been our constant friend and salve. Avoid the atrocious clam strips.

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I made pasta last night—ziti in tomato sauce with pan-roasted eggplant and cubes of fresh mozzarella tossed in before serving. I had figured Kina would be “not an eggplant fiend” (as she would put it) and omitted that ingredient from her bowl, but given her track record for stripping entire pizzas of their cheese, I would have thought she’d appreciate the mozz. Not so! In the spirit of “this bacon is too chunky”, she declared that the cheese was too unwieldy to eat, and no amount of re-portioning would reduce it to an appropriate size. Accordingly, the enormous mozzarella was offloaded to Mommy’s plate. Free cheese being a reward in itself, we could hardly have imagined the bonus of today’s headline zinger, which brings together “to chunk on” (Kina’s longstanding favorite phrasal verb), her avid cheese obsession, and a sassy form of address whose origin in her vocabulary is unknown. I assume she’s picking all this up from She-Ra, but she also called me “Toots” this evening after her bath, and I know that’s from Daniel Tiger. I expect she’ll be calling fully grown adults “honey pie” by the end of the week.

“Why Do People Call Me Tina?”

My favorite thing that Kina does lately is a kind of mimicry of adults in routine social situations, and of those situations, the one I love best is “face-saving appearance of realization”, which is relevant to her question here—though she has deployed it several times in the last week while talking to her parents and other adults. When Laurea and I answered her last night by explaining that people sometimes don’t hear her name clearly, we asked what she does when people do call her “Tina”. She explained:

“I say, ‘My name is not Tina, it’s Kina,” and they say, ‘Ohhhhhhh, yes, yes, right, of course of course Kiiiiiiina, yes, yes, I know, of course. Ha! Ha!’

This is, in fact, exactly what grownups often do when confronted with their errors. She has us all pegged, people.

Force Captain Catra Is Planting Turnips

As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, Kina has begun to identify as Catra from She-Ra lately (as opposed to She-Ra herself), which is fine, given Catra’s late re-alliance with the Rebellion. Catra has opened her own ice cream shop in our house, and she has a thriving garden of turnips. This morning, as I was searching for images of Catra’s face for our photo illustration on this story, Catra identified a picture of herself in full-on anime lovey-face, which she asked the art department to reproduce faithfully as Kina’s portrait. Catra has one blue eye and one greenish eye, except when she’s been captured by Horde Prime and has two bright green eyes. Catra loves this portrait of herself.

We had real trouble getting our young Parade art director working this morning, but she finally agreed to a theme. These are real outlines of her feet, and the drawings are scoops of ice cream. They can’t all be Norman Rockwell, I suppose.

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Laurea told me the other day that I “like to be annoying”, which, on reflection, I think she might have right. Kina certainly agrees, and after tolerating a long stretch of me repeating everything she said this morning, she pushed me down on the bed and started piling pillows on me, running to every room in our apartment to gather throw pillows, body pillows, baby pillows—anything that would muffle my voice. It was funny until it got hard to breathe; Laurea would tell me that I should have thought of that before I pissed Kina off. I should probably strive to be less annoying, but it’s such a pure thrill to needle the ones you love until they bury you alive in bedding.

Specific Balloon Grows Tiresome

I know you’re all dying to know the latest balloon goss—to hear that Kina’s balloons are arrayed throughout the apartment in cups like rotund sentinels, a latex menagerie. Well, friends, the news is not great. Sometime in the last two days, it seems all the water balloons met their demise. I had to ask Laurea about this just now, because I realized I hadn’t seen a balloon in a cup all day, and she informed me briskly that they were no more. (I don’t want to read more into it than that.) They are missed. The water balloons were survived, at the moment of their passing, by four balloons filled with air, two of which are now a few weeks old and slightly wrinkly. It is one of these two balloons for which Kina requested a replacement, preferably filled with water. Reader, there are now five balloons filled with air.

My proudest moment in this edition is the little butt dance. It’s tough to get the little shaky-shaky lines right.

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Speaking very literally, Kina has not lived in so many places, though I grant that her definition of “to live” is expansive—to include places in which she was born, places inhabited by the people she loves, places she has heard of, imaginary places ruled by She-Ra, outer space, and the city where she actually lives. At breakfast this morning, after her careful recitation of homes, Laurea and I responded with all the places we had lived. As a military brat, I had a lot of examples: Miami, Boston, Upstate New York, Ohio, Virginia, Oklahoma (“Ok-la-hoooooo-ma???? Ha! Ha!” said Kina), Germany (“Whoa!”), Upstate New York Again, and Brooklyn. Laurea clocked in with three: Manila, California, Brooklyn.

Though Laurea and I spent the first halves of our lives in various state of relocation, we have lived in this Brooklyn apartment for nearly twenty years, and we have no immediate plans to change that. What does it mean to raise a kid in a place? I have no idea, other than that I assume she may start and graduate elementary school with mostly the same kids and develop a more opinionated accent than I ever did. Laurea and I do want Kina to be worldly (a term that is more than a little loaded and definitely borderline colonizing), but it’s hard to say that either of us want to move anywhere in our adulthood near as much as the two of us did as kids. I took a step the other day towards admitting that we’re going to be here, in this apartment, for a while, when I measured Kina against the door frame of our kitchen and marked her height in pen. I’ve been afraid to commit to staying somewhere with her, without considering whether or not it even mattered. I don’t really care how many places she lives, as long as we have a family and a home together—a lesson I think my parents tucked away for me as our family moved around.

In a way, I think Kina has it right. She does live in California and Virginia (understanding that she could stay in her grandparents’ houses for the rest of her life if she wanted to). She does live in Etherea for most of the day—and certainly whenever She-Ra is on. And, while South America is perhaps a stretch, I think we can all agree that the lot of us live in space, if we’re being really honest about things. I hope we can be here, together, for a while.

I am incredibly proud of my bacon logo, which came to me like a bolt from the blue. It borders on “tasty-looking”.

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