kid points out that hide and seek worth only one day of being liked, and wouldn’t it be nice to be liked for two?
Reader, I decided I would be liked for two days, and I ended up having both to find Kina in one of her many nooks, and also to pretend to use Kina as ingredients for “chili lasagna”. It all took about half an hour, and I would like to point out that she already didn’t like me by this afternoon, when I told her I wouldn’t listen to one particular twee decade-old ballad in the car multiple times.
This has been hopefully the best news you hear about children today. I really hope the other news about children gets better.
She seems confident in the profit margins in lemonade stands in 2024
Kina sometimes wonders why we do not own a house, which is reasonable when you understand that she only a passing familiarity with money, real estate, and the notion of a million dollars. So, when passing a cute little pink house in Greenpoint the other day and asking what it might cost for us to move into it, she didn’t understand that 2.7 million dollars worth of real estate is not easily acquired by the average New Yorker on a whim.
Later that day, as we were walking through Brooklyn Bridge Park, she mused out loud that she would get rich just to buy us that house to live in together, and that she reckoned that, on a hot day, you could sell quite a lot of lemonade and slime. Far be it from me to disabuse her of the notion, as long as I can sit in the fabulous sun room out back.
The house entered contract later that evening. Maybe next time, Kina.
student athlete rises early for best day of entire school year
Astute readers will recall that there was no field day last year, due to wildfires, so it’s no wonder that Kina rose early to have a special field day just for her class. Kudos to Mr Ortiz for going above and beyond. Yet again.
Over the last four years of writing this newspaper, I have enjoyed every little opportunity I can get to use copywriting tricks like [square brackets] that clarify quotes. It just scratches that itch I always had from when I dreamt of being a real journalist, without all the drama and excessive smoking.
Kina is selected to stand on stage with visiting Chinese dance troupe, presumably (she says) because she is Asian.
I came home from work yesterday to find Kina engaged in an elaborate Kung Fu exhibition in our living room, having spent all of five minutes on stage with a local Kung Fu school. I’m not an expert in the form, but I would say that Kina has made considerable progress, given the extent of her training so far.
“They put me right in the middle,” she said proudly, “because I am Asian.”
Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month from the girl you least want to sneak up on.
“One, face paint; two, paint nails; three, bouncy castle w/friends”
Kina knows that face painting is always the longest line, and so she shows up early. The bouncy castle, however, is forever. And ever. And ever.
Yesterday’s schoolyard festival was, as you might imagine, a fundraiser for Kina’s school budget—gutted, as I am obligated to remind you, by our city’s current administration. I thought of you all as I forked over cash for face painting and bouncy castles. This is all worth it.
If you have been thinking, “oh hey let me fix public education by reading The Daily Kina,” you still have a fighting chance at funding this month’s donation drive (currently at $15, which can buy around two reams of copier paper) by upgrading to a “premium subscription” at this button I just learned that you could put in an email:
Sits on Daddy’s lap while he holds a sweater over her head; young ballerina transfixed by groups dancing bachata, modern, Memphis Jookin’, and tap.
I wrote about the NYC Dance Parade two years ago, when it was not raining. Last year, it rained, and we did not go. This year, it rained again, and we went. This year was the best year.
I guess it seemed like a promising opportunity, with Mommy and Daddy out for a date and a movie on the TV, but Kina is ultimately our daughter, and this family sleeps.
Argues with Daddy, art collector, about the term “glaze”
She insists that the shiny coating on her ceramic cat is called “a white glue that turns clear”, and she insists so vehemently that I am questioning if this is even actually clay or some weird new, 21st-Century clay-adjacent material that got invented sometime in the four decades after that time I made my grandmother a Star Wars-themed landspeeder ashtray.
Given how upset Kina gets when we interrupt her long story setups, I am honestly glad to honor this request when she makes it. It’s a good reminder that stories don’t always end the way we expect.
dad
p.s. The Daily Kina’s public school rescue drive is afoot, with $10 raised so far! Can we get to $20 by this weekend?? Mash the “Sign up for a premium subscription” link in the footer today!
Kid and the other Maple girls build multi-layer, ranked-choice bus seating system for class field trip
Kina loves roasting the boys, who seem totally uninterested in which boys sit with each other on the field trip buses. Meanwhile, Kina has a five-level fallback for her bus partner and is excited to see the sea lions.
In other news, Kina’s school is doing a fundraiser, and while I haven’t taken a direct approach with you readers for helping to raise said funds, it is worth noting that the current mayor of New York City has made substantial cuts to public education in a system that supports over a million children. This has led to shortfalls at every school, and while I have very specific thoughts about mayoral control of the New York City Public Schools, the immediate impact is that parents are filling the gap.
How can you help? Glad you asked. I’ve decided that every paid subscription we get this month will go to Kina’s school as part of their Spring fundraiser. If you have not already (and please, Kina’s Lala, do not increase your monthly rate), you can head on down to the bottom of this here email and hit “Sign up for a premium subscription” and donate whatever you wish—even a dollar is fine. All subscriptions this month will go directly to Kina’s school and earmarked from “Readers of the Daily Kina”.
Child discovers one of the central struggles of identity
It must be odd, the first time you realize that you’ve never actually looked at your own real face, and that most of the time, the face you see is backwards from your actual face. I also still think about it all the time, and I’m 42 years older than Kina.
Sometimes I think this newspaper is just a safe way to talk about how being a kid is basically like being wildly stoned.
