Three and eight is a magical combination of cousins. Especially for their parents.

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I am extremely proud of the increasing time-consuming pork BBQ skewers I made on Thursday (which included making my own banana ketchup, which was recently banned in the U.S., “because of some stupid additive,” as Laurea pointed out). The skewers were the star of the show, especially if the diner is Kina. I put about the same amount of work in for the stuffing and got considerably more lukewarm feedback from our house critic, which tells me something about how she values tradition.

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Who among us does not remember the smell of our yeh-yeh’s house?

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Expect a big Thanksgiving omnibus post tomorrow, now that I’m back from the suburbs. We are lucky.

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In some ways, half days of school are even better than days off.

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She may never spy this rare natural event again.

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For the seven of you who asked me in Instagram, Luna Luna is actually pretty neat and also good for kids, even if you can’t ride the Basquiat ferris wheel.

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A very happy birthday to the mother of the publisher. Long may she eat cake for breakfast.

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She’s legitimately hilarious some days.

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Caftans are the best way to preserve Mommy’s scent during an extended business trip.

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Go kick rocks, mean people.

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We are slowly devolving send help or mommy.

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She has mixed feelings about cats, who in turn have mixed feelings about her.

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It was curious when Kina strolled up to me on Saturday and asked specifically to be allowed to walk alone through the park with her friend Runa. We’ve been talking a lot about independence lately (see also last week’s Sunday Kina about taking the trash out on her own) and I know Kina is fascinated to see teenaged girls walking around in packs. This felt important to her—and not so terribly different from letting her play unsupervised in a large playground.

And so, keeping in mind that this was a fairly well-contained park with few distractions, sharp objects, or large untended chasms, I let her go, with no particular constraints, other than not to leave the park—nothing but, “Go. Fine. I’ll be here.”

I should not have been surprised by the mild sense of panic that followed this heroic act of confident parenting, not knowing exactly where Kina was or what she was up to, so I distracted myself with talking to Runa’s dad (who does not, he reminded me after first seeing this edition, have bangs) about the inner life of our daughters until they returned, some ten minutes later.

This is one of those things that third-grade teachers get really right about life, and that I am trying to practice. Kina, as always, is the rose.

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I’m glad she’s internalized this.

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Her mother is so proud.

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This is the intersection of past storylines about the tooth fairy and parental dates. It is also a reminder of the origin of this newspaper—a space for me (and you) to pay attention to something that is nourishing and small and curious. I hope that is working.

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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.

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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.

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