If it is Thursday, it must be Saturday.

dad

I really had Kina pegged as a bouncy ball chair girl, given her history as a bouncer, but this wouldn’t be the first time she surprised me. Neither of us, for the record, would be a boring chair kid.

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She really dodged a bullet there. Could have been eating cafeteria sushi for three years straight.

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When you’re six, there is nothing quite like walking randomly into Tompkins Square Park to find a troupe of amateur actors performing an antifascist musical about the subway. This is why we live here.

dad

Usually, when we visit Governor’s Island, as we did yesterday with Kina’s friend Runa, we rent a bike for Laurea (who does not own one), and I squire Kina about on the back of my bike—which is built to squire Kina around, after all. Yesterday, though, Kina was insistent that we rent a bike with training wheels so that she could ride next to Runa, who would also rent a bike with training wheels, and they would terrorize the island together.

I balked at first, having seen Kina ride a bicycle only three times in her life—to a rather underwhelming effect, which I know sounds mean, but really, she wasn’t going anywhere fast. But Kina persisted, and so a bike with training wheels was procured for her, and she pedaled off gamely in Runa’s wake.

This quickly evolved. By the time we were snarfing down hot dogs, Kina and Runa were doing long, looping laps of the car-free paths of Governor’s Island on their own—and quickly. By the midafternoon, Kina was riding fast enough that I could pedal at my relatively normal calm pace, as she dodged in front of and behind Runa and her older sister.

Today was not quite fully warm, but it was not at all cold, either, which she seemed to think was fine. Tolerably, mostly warm.

dad

Mary Kay over here.

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It doesn’t stop, Kina.

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To be fair, it was an excellent haircut.

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All Kina wants is to be able to say she knows somebody on the playground without her parents making a whole deal of it. Is that really so much to ask?

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I’m not trying to say that we talk a lot in this house, but it makes sense that Kina finds real joy in speech. The older she gets, the better she is at exploring the nuances of her feelings and experiences, which is gratifying to all of us. There are times, maybe, when it maybe feels better to her than it does to us, but I don’t take it for granted. It feels good, to me, for her to talk—on balance, given the alternative. I can wait my turn.

dad

The Daily Kina would like to remind you that Autumn does not technically begin for another week and change, and that you should continue with your summer protocols until the Autumn Equinox officially arrives. Do not—repeat, do not—purchase Halloween costumes, bust out scarves, drink pumpkin spice lattes, or perform any other customary cold season rituals in a rush to escape this unseasonal humidity and heat; the side effects of moving too quickly into Autumn could result in bored and sad children throughout New York City.

For the purposes of this mandate, “you” shall be construed to include deciduous trees. Keep those leaves high. We have months yet to grow weary and dry. Enjoy the moment.

I was just now trying to find old issues of this newsletter that talked about how conflicted I was about the idea of someday no longer writing The Daily Kina, and I couldn’t find anything—which either means that I’m really bad at search engine optimization or really bad about acknowledging this elephant in the room.

It’s possible, of course, that I’ve mentioned it here or there in the midst of talking about Kina’s weird relationship with time or in one of the many anniversary posts, but it’s more likely the case that I just haven’t mentioned it.

I may have mentioned here or there that I originally planned to do this for a hundred days—which is what I consider the high bar of success for a new hobby—and then planned to go until she started kindergarten, or maybe for a year, or until the vaccines came out, or, or, or, or, or…

It is apparently the case that you “cannot get in trouble” in Mr. Ortiz’s class, but we are following up to confirm these allegations.

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Off to the races with this tall person who claims to be my baby daughter.

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She explained to me at bedtime tonight that embarrassing is the same as annoying, and when I tried to point out the ways in which embarrassing somebody is different, she agreed that I was annoying.

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Smoosh.

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You all may feel that a little chill in the evening air signifies the end of summer. For these girls, it is when Futura gets back from Italy. Let the autumn commence.

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Our publisher would like to announce that, having finally tested Covid-negative after nine brutal asymptomatic days, she is declaring our three-person newsroom Covid-free and cleared for beat reporting once again. The masthead will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your continued subscription to the Daily Kina. Wear your masks.

It’s back! Parade is back! I bought Kina a box full of adhesive googly eyes for entertainment last week, and she’s put them to good use here on her suspiciously trippy mushroom. One for the ages!

Straight into the middle like a psychopath.

dad