In August, we took Kina to the planetarium, which shocked and amazed her for reasons of cosmic awareness and planetarium seating. What I thought was that Kina was awed by the scale of the universe, but what she thought was: “Cool light show”.

So yesterday, upon walking through the gates of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden1 for a “light show”, Kina was extremely prepared to hear the reassuring tones of Lupita Nyong’o narrating the birth of the universe, and not—as was actually the case—to see a bunch of LED-lit trees. With that now in mind, I understand why she strolled casually past the laser light show over the pond at the Japanese Garden and dismissed the fancy glowing fountains by the conservatory building. On she trudged past fields of dancing pixels and giant glowing peonies, thoroughly unimpressed.

At one point, she spotted an Instagram-famous arch of white lights in the distance and began to run towards it, thinking it was the gate to the inevitable planetarium, but was disappointed ultimately to find that it was just a well-photographed arch.

Out with the old year, in with the new. Never thought I’d feel about this New Year the same as I did the last one, but here we are. At least the kid had a dance party with her friend and we ate lentils for good fortune. May this year (the third calendar year of this august publication) be better, for all of us, than the last.

dad

Only power ballads for our queen!

dad

Little Shakespeare over here.

dad

We wouldn’t let her jump rope in the living room, so now we are training the new junior limbo queen while this variant burns out a bit.

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With the collection of crowns this queen has amassed, it would be inexcusable to be seen without one—in or out of her castle, which is now permanently affixed to the side of her bed.

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To be fair, Kina, your mother and father have been talking too much for a lot longer than ten years. You’re just catching up now, but you’ll learn to talk over us soon enough.

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It is always the job of the youngest member of a family to distribute gifts from under the tree to the sleepier, snackier members of that family, who are invariably seated on the couch or lying on the floor on Christmas morning. The job is a double-edged sword; you get to decide how and when the joy is doled out (both as givers and recipients of gifts), but you are cursed to know with deep intimacy the arc of the gifting—and when the gifts will run out, most notably for yourself.

So it came to pass, then, that Kina saved for herself a single gift—the last gift of a long, slow Christmas morning—under the boughs of the Christmas tree and burst into incongruous tears.

The job is a blessing and a curse, but she availed herself well of the opportunity, and she relished every gift—no matter who the recipient was. We are very proud of her, and grateful for what we have been able to share this year.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. We here at The Daily Kina hope you enjoy a macaron or blueberry pancake, as best befits your cultural practices.

dad

I don’t think there is a better word to describe the season we are living through than “bittersweet”, and Kina is working overtime trying to absorb it. Lala safe at home, but not with us. Laurea’s first in person event in two years cancelled, which means she doesn’t have to travel during Omicron but also doesn’t get to throw a party. Kina safely out of school, but unsure what it will look like to return. Daddy scores some rapid tests, but… rapid tests.

Maybe Christmas is always bittersweet, and the passage of time and onset of winter contribute to that, but this year is a little extra bitter, and Kina is seeing how that brings out the sweetness by contrast. A second Christmas here at home—a reprise of one of our favorite Christmases of all time, a pandemic paradox. It may be all the Christmas that Kina actually remembers.

Still wonderful, for her part. Slightly more bitter for her parents, but the sweetness is not lost on us, and that’s enough.

She is too proud to apologize with her voice, but just good enough at spelling to make a reasonable attempt at conveying her regrets in writing. We’ll take what we can get.

dad

Given the opportunity, I, for one, would gladly crawl under a comforter and sleep away the next three months. I hope you have found your own suitable hibernating places.

dad

I did not think we would be raising the girl who collects crowns, but here we are. Queens do require headgear, I suppose.

dad

In the first few weeks of lockdown, after a certain publisher’s family had recovered from an unpleasant bout of the Covids, the Publisher’s daddy went online and found a great deal on a pack of thirty-six cans of Play-Doh, which had been delivered overnight, along with roughly twenty very fragile plastic molding doohickeys that reminded him of the commercials for Play-Doh toys he had watched as a child.

It was unclear to him, upon unpacking the toys, whether the original versions of the toys were better constructed than the ones he received, all jumbled together in a thin plastic bag, because he was fairly certain he hadn’t had any of those toys as a child, which is why he had bought them for his daughter in the first place.

The family imagined all the ways that thirty-six cans of Play-Doh could be molded and folded and pressed into various artful arrangements—a full spectrum of creative squishiness that could keep the entire family distracted as the events outside their window played out.

What is there to say here? The kid likes foods that start with “P”. Honestly, the real headline here is that we got a shot in the kid just as this aggressive variant had started popping off, and that’s some solace. Please stay safe out there.

Today’s Parade is called “Family Portrait”, and it’s one of my favorites. Kina insisted on drawing a green beard on me, which is why it looks like I am projectile vomiting.

One down, one to go. Tune in to tomorrow’s morning edition to hear how it went, and get your boosters!

dad

Kina usually says this after conveying a snack-related secret to me or Laurea, and she means to keep us from spilling the beans. It can also be used to prevent me from brushing her hair. Sort of.

dad

The child’s obsession with teens continues apace, except it’s becoming apparent that she actually means “tweens” (see today’s headline about teens being “as tall as Daddy’s shoulder), and that she actually thinks teens are full-grown adults. Everybody’s an adult when you’re forty inches tall, I guess.

dad

When you think about it, there’s nothing that would suggest to a five year old that parents can’t read minds, in that they have mostly done exactly that for the preceding five years. Trust that the realization is disappointing for all of us.

dad

Did I mention Kina was crying more lately?

Yesterday, it was about the soup. The soup was hot. The soup was cold. The soup was soup. I had made the soup, and it’s a soup that she has always liked—a cauliflower and gruyère soup from our dear departed local sandwich counter, Saltie. It is a reliable way to get cauliflower into a child, and the soup has not, until now, been rejected.

But the soup was soup yesterday, and that meant something to Kina, and she cried.