Day 2: the child makes creative demands.

dad

Hello from London, where I am doing conference things with Laurea. Today’s edition—and the subsequent five or so—comes from “Ya-Ya”, whom I have been calling “Yeh-Yeh” here for the last three years. Whatever—it’s his name, not mine. Today’s (yesterday’s?) top headline dives into Kina’s habit of tossing a handful of Cheerios into any smoothie she finds, which is in fact for textural contrast—a gourmet like her parents. You should try it sometime.

dad

Hello from the plane! Our publisher will be presiding over the Agreeing Courtroom with my folks during the next week. Expect my father’s handwriting.

dad

Almost exactly three years ago (before I started writing the newsletter version of this paper), I produced an edition made up entirely of the word “Meow”. This edition is an homage to that one, which I will add here for posterity, in honor of Kina’s unwavering love of cats. Loyal readers will recognize in this historic artifact a few historic nuggets—a long-abandoned price, Kina’s original portrait, a four-headline weekday edition, and our friend Oakwul.

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She really did just sort of… start swimming? It was wild.

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I get nervous when I have to draw a portrait of somebody who is not Kina, but I do feel that I’ve captured Eka’s essential vibe and her inexplicably deep love of Kina.

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Tea parties are infrequent affairs in our home, and I was honored to be invited in the first place, but I meddled a little too much and ended up banished for ten minutes, before being allowed to return on the condition that I sit quietly and not mess with the cakes. I did okay, but I had to eat off the smallest plate.

ALSO: Kina can flip herself upside-down on the rings! Who knew? How many shows can this child plausibly perform in the span of a single month? Let’s find out!

ALSO: I really did debate for a long time whether to make the top headline about Kina’s wondrous, mid-sidewalk, leotard-clad fascination with slime, but it felt too intensely personal to put that high up. Still—it was hilarious.

I do not feel totally at ease with the concept of infinity—it’s too uncomfortable, for a lover of numbers, to conceive of a number that is beyond counting. I like to be able to catch up with my numbers, but Kina has addressed this by abandoning any notion of mathematics and just imagining a never-ending rainbow slide, which—once you commit to it—you ride on forever and ever. It is because of this that one cannot have two or three times infinity; you never have the opportunity to get on the second slide. I find this unassailable, and it will help me sleep at night.

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p.s. For more history on Pigeon Friend, please consult:

Among the very best, technically—just twenty or so out of 75,000 teachers, by my count—but Kina knows Ms Hart’s the actual very best. And now so do you.

dad

The pratfall really got a laugh. Comedy genius.

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Oh, thank god.

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She really packs a lot of subjects into a short lesson with her little “teacher stick” and her taped-on gems.

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It was a big day for these two kids who have known each other since they knew anybody at all.

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What can I say? She’s a force of nature. Look at that form! I swoon.

No problemo.

Careful readers will note that no sleep occurs at this proposed sleepover, and there is a “secret part”; I suspect there will be a sleepover edition sometime this year. We’re ready for it (the edition, not the sleepover). Also, this is my fourth consecutive birthday writing this paper (my first birthday edition, from 2020, led with “Mystery at Chef Panda’s New Bakery; Chocolate Croissants Lack Chocolate”).

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Have you tried it? She’s not wrong.

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Our selfless publisher, en route to school in a smoky haze, turns her attention to the little furry folks.

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In a “normal world”, an elementary school administrator planning for a celebratory Field Day for the end of school would have backup plans for rain (let’s say), or an outbreak of COVID, or continued systemic budget cuts that impact the number of available kickballs. But the bar for normal has once again fallen, and our proverbial administrator is left wondering why she didn’t take into consideration that Canada might be on fire.

But the email came in this morning that Canada was on fire after all, and that it was so on fire that New York itself seemed like it was actually on fire, and so there would be no field day—no takeover of the local park, no dirty shoes, no kickballs (budget shortfalls or not). The kids would still dress in their class colors (blue for first grade!) and maybe watch a movie, but they would stay indoors with the windows firmly shut, because this was the kind of smoke that was deeply unhealthy for everybody—but especially for kids with respiratory disorders, which are disproportionately present in communities under the poverty line, which—in turn—represents half the population of this hypothetical administrator’s school.

And so the kids would spend the day indoors, watching a movie and coming up with games to play. The parents would show up at 2:40 under a burnt orange sky to scoop their masked children up and ferry them home and into their sealed-up living rooms and ask them how their day was, knowing full well that it was not as good a day as their kids had hoped for.

There’s a good way and a bad way. It tends to hinge on a sigh and the hint of a smile. Now you know.

dad

Just your average day on the bike with America’s messiest child and her love of ice cream, stickers, and ring pops. By far the cleanest bit was when she swam unassisted, which is somehow not today’s top headline, but the quote was too funny not to lead with. This is journalism.

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Kina has considered the matter deeply and has decided that I will be Mister Bossiness for the rest of the year, alongside Momminsons and the Princess Snugglemachine herself. That’s news enough for a lazy weekend, I think. Playground’s open, go have fun, Sugarprince.

Holy wow do I love today’s Parade. As usual, it took a few hours to get Kina’s creative juices going, but the abstract results are hard to argue with. I love how she used all the materials today, and I was proud to help here and there—but this is her masterpiece, if you ask me.

Tight quarters here. We make do.

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Kina’s first-grade teacher is also the Drama teacher, and I’m pretty sure, based on Kina’s reaction to watching all the kids in school sing Elsa music, that Kina and Ms Hart will have a long and fruitful friendship.

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It’s actually not a bad deal. Surprise parties are fun to throw.

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Our esteemed publisher woke promptly at six thirty, whirling with excitement for our first beach trip of summer—joined by several friends and their families. What our publisher did not do, however, is check the wind forecast.

Despite the ensuing offshore gale and a full suite of airborne tents and umbrellas, Kina and her crew stayed at the shore for four hours. Sand was everywhere! Goosebumps were pervasive! And yet—nobody takes our beach from us, no how.

It’s rare that the water is more comfortable than the sand at the end of May, but she and I spent a good while underneath the choppy waves, where our nerve endings slowly shut down and we dunked with glee. Emerging, however, caused no end of drama for Kina, as noted in our second headline. The suffering she will endure—and which she will drag her Sea Parent into—for love of the ocean knows no bounds.

These shoes may well literally have been designed for Kina. They are her single most prized possession right now.

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Loyal Readers! Look to the bottom of this electronic mail missive for a drawing challenge that will call on you to deliver world-class cuteness! You might love it! You might scoff! The kitty is undeniably cute!

“What are your plans for Memorial Day weekend?” they ask. “Are you traveling?” they ask. “Will you stumble into another group of tangentially-related children and go with them into a large canoe floating in Brooklyn’s second-most-famous poop canal? Will you row out into the East River, where the mouth of the Newtown Creek is shockingly vast? Will you learn that massive barges still ply the waters of the canal, despite the presence of two unassuming canoes floating back and forth from said mouth of said canal to the cacophonous shade under the Pulaski Bridge? Will you dodge lumps of poop and admire the geese? Will you sustain a mild sunburn on the tops of your thighs? Will you watch as your six-year-old daughter, three seats in front of you, rows in concert with the volunteer coxswain? Will you hear her moaning about how much she wishes she could be hanging out with her friend Futura, who is sitting directly behind her and also moaning? Will you wash your hands thoroughly?”

PAUSE GAME!

dad

Kina, her mommy, and I all had a great morning drawing newspapers with her classmates for Family Friday, where the day’s news mostly revolved around baseball games, Connecticut, and food. After the kids had drawn their front pages, we read them all to the class, shouting extra! extra! with each new headline.

There was, surprisingly, only one top headline about poop, which I decided belonged in the Science section. Somebody’s top headline was about their uncle. Most impressively, one paper was all about how somebody’s family had come to Family Friday to do newspapers and by the way there were going to be healthy snacks; I gave that editor a hug and a kiss, and I told her I’d see her at home.

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Late to send, but no less satisfying, if only so you can learn that Kina thinks Alexandra is a “shady name”. Sorry to all Alexandras.

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I did my best to capture Kina’s glory this morning. She got the memo.

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Kina’s reading skills have improved dramatically this year, in a breathtaking sprint that now has her revisiting the hundred or so books we’ve spent her entire life reading to her. Among those books is my favorite of all time: Where the Wild Things Are.

The first time I mentioned Where the Wild Things Are was in September of 2020, as a mid-page headline on an issue otherwise dedicated to Kina’s “rage tutu”. We have read this book, in the last three years, countless times. I take great joy in reading it to her. Before we had Kina, when I imagined being a dad, the vision I had was of myself reading Where the Wild Things Are to my future kid.

What I did not envision was that she would someday read it to me, as we all sat on the living room floor late in the evening. I did not imagine that I would hear my own child sound out the word “mischief” (of one kind and another). I did not see what it would look like as she turned the pages. Now I know.

This is not technically Kina’s first recital, which occurred inexplicably less than a year ago and yet feels profoundly distant in my memory of the event. This was, however, the first time Kina has had a recital in a place that could not be reasonably called “Sloane’s living room”. It is also the first time Kina has performed as part of a corps de ballet to the accompaniment of the Beach Boys’ classic hit, “Surfer Girl”. Given the musical selection, it was surprising that surfing didn’t play a larger role in the choreography. It is, however, not surprising that I have had “Surfer Girl” in my head for the entire day today.

Brava, prima.

dad

With the annual Dance Parade washed out, Kina turned to her friend Runa for a little day on the town in more sheltered environs.

Learned: Malls just suck for kids—or at least the small number of malls in New York City.

Learned: The kids will nonetheless make their own fun.

The kid has taken up the mantle of house scientist, with a focus in bubble dynamics.

dad

Before I say this, I want to make perfectly clear that nobody should have a child to make themselves feel better; in that general direction can be found countless hours of therapy—for children and their parents both.

HOWEVER:

There is something profoundly comforting about the rush of oxytocin we get from looking at Kina after a hard day. The overwhelming sense of love and adoration, held up next to the adrenaline of conflict or stress, carries with it a strange sense of purpose. Everything takes on greater meaning when you’re hugging a six-year-old; it has to.

I think when people who do not live in New York imagine what it must be like to raise a child here, they have a vision of a reeling anonymity that deprives humans of meaningful community. Those people do not understand neighborhoods.

In the fifteen minutes it took us to walk to dinner at one of our favorite slice joints last night, Kina recognized five people, waving to them offhandedly from across streets, in the middle of intersections, and while perched on a plywood bench eating pizza. Most—but not all—were under the age of eight.

This wasn’t even on a weekend, or on a playground!

If only we had a piazza.

dad

Okay, so, good news: kitty scientists.

(and Dog Bader!)

dad

Kina spent at least twenty minutes yesterday peppering us with Would You Rather scenarios (a confirmation that this is in fact my very own daughter), but all of the options were between something gross and some horrible way to die, which meant that we were continually signing up for things like “living in a vat full of poo forever” or “always eating mustard”. A real grind, but better than the alternative.

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It stands to reason that this critically-esteemed publication would not exist without Kina. It is further true that without her mother, Laurea, Kina would not exist. By the transitive property of progeneration, then, The Daily Kina is really in many ways a story of Laurea.

I try as often as I can to make sure Laurea’s story is told here as much as mine is. (Kina, of course, gets top billing, but she is the publisher and gets that prerogative.) There are many days when I sit down in the morning to write and ask Laurea, “Is there any news?” She never fails to miss a scoop. Because of that, the news you see in these pages is not just told by Laurea but is also a version of Kina’s life through Laurea’s eyes—and in that you see a picture of who Laurea is.

As Kina gets older, we see her mother shining through her in new and exciting ways—when she lays out her clothes in a chic and flat version of herself on the floor, for example, or in defense of her friends on the playground (which makes her parents unspeakably proud to hear about). Kina is undeniably her mother’s daughter—the spitting, sometimes infuriated image.

It feels like Kina has finally gotten over the sting of not being the baby of the family, and she’s willing to admit that this Otis kid has something going for him.

dad

Sometimes the questions get eerie, but it’s also the case that I haven’t really thought about orphanages in a long time, and it gave me something to look up on Wikipedia.

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It’s just mommies all the way back.

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Kina asked me to tell her a secret yesterday, explaining that its security was guaranteed by the fact that our dreams wash out all the memories of the day before by the time we wake up. I’m not sure whether this is a great idea or a horrible idea, but it reminds me of one of the ways I coped during the tedium and crisis of the early pandemic: I would wake up each day and pretend that I was a brand-new soul, assigned to David’s body while he slept. I would have all David’s memories and the physiological responses to whatever had happened to him the day before, but I could see the problems of his life from a bit of a distance, knowing that I had just one day to try to make them better—and no particular stake in the matter. This worked surprisingly well, if not for the disposal of unpleasant memories and thoughts, then at least for helping to dissipate their emotional trauma. I like the image of my brain taking out the trauma trash every night, making a tidy little nook to hold the wonder and frustration of a new day.

I didn’t tell Kina the secret, by the way. She’s horrible at keeping them.

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Just tearing away all her childhood fantasies, one truth at a time.

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Even for Kina, this was a lot of face painting (most of it done by friends, with eye shadow). I wasn’t even sure we could get it all off by the end of the day, but here we are now, all fresh-faced and having fun.

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Pulled reluctantly from her rapt viewing of the coronation yesterday, Kina spent the rest of her Saturday walking around the city with us—a family ritual that long predates her arrival on the scene. Starting from 29th Street, where we ate a lunch of pasta and salad, we made our way to the Madison Square Park playground (with its legendary tire swing), to the base of a statue for some drawing (a couple of excellent portraits and landscapes in pencil and ink), down Broadway to Union Square (where she yelled back and forth with me into one of the city’s only working playground pipe intercoms), down the sidewalks of University Place to Washington Square (where she inquired about the many weed vendors), through the Village to Morgenstern’s Ice Cream (for a scoop of strawberry with sprinkles), across the street to what Kina calls the “Tanuki maze” (a painted labyrinth that is perfect for chasing), and across town for dinner at one of our favorite Thai restaurants.

All of this travel was by foot—to the tune of roughly five miles, eventually. Whose feet? Depends on how closely you were watching.

You could not have planned the first British coronation in over seventy years more appropriately to coincide with Kina’s fascination with gowns, crowns, and assorted regalia. She found a lot of the talking boring, but she gave high marks to the myriad scepters and swords.

God save the Kina!

dad

A real bag of chuckles, this one.

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