for “Take Your Kids To Work Day”, Kina lays out her very own A1, writes opinion essay titled “Parents Should Not Have To Go To Work”
I am not sure what Kina liked most—the activities they scheduled for her at work, including exclusive interview opportunities with famous journalists, the morning bike ride to the office, or the chance to wear matching outfits with me in public. She spent the morning today interviewing Laurea about her job, so the activities must have made an impact. Journalism forever!
Upon correctly ID’ing Daddy, Child observes that “Mommy’s just not that hairy”; hairy-pheromoned Daddy objects
When I, a super-smeller, identified notes of burning rubber on Kina’s wrist, it led to a cascade of tears and apologies that lasted nearly twenty minutes.
daddy puzzled by soft-serve-averse gymnast; a highly unusual case!
One of Kina’s famous 4-hour fevers forced her to delay eating ice cream until after a nap. Also: her main beef with the first ice cream was that it was too crunchy.
Kina, born performer, holds up letter “A” in “EARTH” with gusto
Kina has developed a really charming habit of standing on stage while people applaud for group performances, just soaking it all up for herself. Give it up for “A”!
two families gather to give thanks for the woman who shepherded three babies into childhood; we eat cake—not too sweet
Hannah is probably the closest non-blood-related family that Kina has—or that I have, for that matter. She has raised this kid to be a fantastic human being in her own image, and I am profoundly grateful for her. She also shares a birth year with me, and so we spend lots of time complaining about various aches and pains and talking about how we like desserts that are not too sweet. Happy birthday to you, Hannah, and may your cake be none too sweet.
In section discussing whether dolphins are extinct, researcher notes, “It’s hard to say,” blames sharks for eating them
I hesitated to mention in this edition the kid who approached Kina and her other Asian-American classmate at gym class and just lobbed a mindbogglingly racist slur at them. I also hesitated before googling the specific linguistic formulation of this slur, and my stomach sank when no results turned up, because it suggested that this kid heard it from somebody, somewhere, who recited it from memory. I hesitated when she came home after school with Laurea and we sat on the couch to talk about it and tell her that we are bigger than the words the people use to hurt us; I hesitated as I considered what I wanted to tell her to do in the future—to tell an adult, sure, but to get in that kid’s face? To shout? To snarl? To spit? I hesitated before telling her she was strong, because I feel more conviction about the weakness of people who use these words, and the tragedy that little Asian girls have to be strong specifically to meet this weakness. I hesitated because the kid is also seven, and white, and has never had to hear his parents talk about being demeaned or passed over or dismissed because of the color of their skin, never had to see somebody who looked like them at work—somebody who has risen to the top of their field—called out by a senior leader not for their actual work but for the food eaten in the country of their birth. I hesitate to say that the kid might simply have found the language of the slur exciting and curious and was literally just telling Kina and her friend about the slur because he thought they might be interested to hear it—and because nobody, when it was said in front of him, suggested that it was a horrible thing to call a person. I hesitated to be angry yesterday, because Laurea was angry and I couldn’t afford to be angry. I was angry all day today, instead, unable to shake the memory of Kina telling me she got a couple math problems wrong “because the thing had happened just before and I couldn’t focus”. I hesitated to put this in the top slot because I think the dolphins are the thing that I want her to remember about yesterday, but at the end, I put it in the second slot, because I want her not to forget.
She’s fine. She’s safe. She has a good teacher and good friends. She has parents who are ready for this and who know it won’t be the last time. She loves dolphins, but it’s hard to say if they’re extinct.
Child turns to the kaleidoscope of her eyelids while she walks with Daddy to get the bike on a cloudy morning
She closes her eyes and tells me to let her know if anything is in her way. She walks alongside me and calls out the colors behind her eyelids: blue, violet, blue, burgundy. She turns left with me, and I tell her the the road ahead is straight and clear, and it is burgundy. Blue again, then left into the parking garage and down the ramp, violet.
Child peers into Daddy’s memories and reveals that he ate a cheeseburger for lunch, defying reason and mental science
Just a minute before this, I stunned her by guessing that she had eaten a beef patty for lunch. I have never seen her so gobsmacked, and it was almost a tragedy that I had to tell her I just looked at the school lunch menu. She would want me to tell you that she had no such study aid when she guessed, accurately, that I snarfed down a cheeseburger for lunch.
“Like, I would like to run fast but I want to slow down after“
Kina and I spent her entire bathtime playing out various wishes that could go awry at the hands of a nefarious magic mirror.
Wish you could run fast? What if you could never stop running fast? Best, instead, to wish that you could run fast “for just a little while and then stop.”
Wish you could hug Mommy forever? What if that meant you had to drag Mommy around to school and on hot days? Best to say you wish you could hug her “during certain times at night and she wouldn’t go back to her bed.”
attentive child reminds Daddy that she is, in fact, real
You know, it seems not really a good thing for my mental health that my kid has to tell me that she is “not an illusion”. She is right, though—I do love blue and green.
