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.

The publisher thinks I am covering the tall-girl beat a little too thoroughly.

dad

Kina had a birthday party! The venue was spinny and the children were kind. We are all thoroughly exhausted, but Kina is happy, and at least she is asleep. Happy fifth, kid, and many returns of the day.

For Kina’s birthday, Laurea let her choose a single sticker from the Very Nice Sticker Book That Only Mommy Gets To Use, which is why you see a beautiful vase on today’s edition. There is also a unicorn.

I wrote about Kina’s fourth birthday last December 11th, and it is one of my favorite newsletters from the last year.1 Not thinking that I would ever write another birthday newsletter, I went deep on the history of Kina’s birthdays and waxed nostalgic. If you want waxy things, go back and read that. This year is about last year, and about knowing what’s going on.

When Kina turned four, it happened on Zoom. We invited one of her favorite singalong people. Adults’ faces and kids’ faces were the same size, each in their own proper rectangles. Kina didn’t seem to understand what was going on. Strangely, the thing I most recall is that we had entirely too much cake (because there were only three of us to eat it).

Kina turns five tomorrow, which means she is now, by her definition, officially old.

She knows I am already old, because I talk about it all the time, and she seldom misses an opportunity to remind me of it.

I am, of course, still relatively young as a human being, I tell myself. Kina is, by extension, comically not old.

Don’t bring a rock to the nose fight.

dad

The irony of Kina throwing away a paper tracking how patient she has become (because I didn’t give her a snack exactly when she asked for it) is entirely lost on her, which is regrettable. Fortunately, I’ve captured it for posterity! Hello, adult Kina!

dad

Here are the mnemonic number chants Kina has taught me so far:

“Draw a hook, give it a shoe! That’s the way we make a two!”

“Backwards C, backwards C! That’s the way we make a three!”

The tradition of hanging a coronavirus ornament on our Christmas tree is as old as our tradition of having a Christmas tree at all, which is exactly one year. The ornament reads “2020”, which now feels wildly nostalgic and naïve, but it is also somewhat festive, which is all that matters.

dad

Yesterday, we talked to Kina about how she might want to think about giving toys to kids who would not otherwise get Christmas gifts of their own. Kina, who is still very young and therefore moderately self-interested, expressed some skepticism. Instead, she offered as a compromise, she would give presents to friends, family, and classmates. I tried several routes in with her to explore the notion of random acts of generosity—a kid on the playground or at the library, or a girl with the same name as her. No dice.

I had never really explained the concept of generosity to Kina before (there are so many social concepts!) but somebody else must have, because this is what she said when I asked her about it:

“Generous is when you’re nice to someone who is anxious, nervous, or sad.”

Mommy is back, and she’s fulfilling all of Kina’s many wishes. Nobody in this house has any complaints at all.

dad

Hed and dek say it all. She’s fine. She had ice cream. We’re good!

dad

Kina has, in the last week or so, spontaneously decided to attempt spelling her own words—in most cases in a nearly incomprehensible fashion, but admirable for the effort, nonetheless. (GRDY is Gertie, the cat of my young adulthood, who died when Kina was still very small.)

The card she drew today for her mother is now hung with gaffer’s tape at the foot of our bed. Kina wanted Laurea to see it when she was getting ready in the morning.

There are no pictures on the page, for a change. Kina’s a spelling girl now, living that writer’s life. Enjoy it now, child, before the editors come for you!

Yesterday, when she came home, Kina marched up to me and confidently informed me that she was this week’s star student. This is an enormous deal.

She has been talking about the concept of a “star student” since the beginning of the year. It is an award that Kina speaks of in hushed tones. Odin has been star student, and Georgia, and Dean. She tells us these things as though they are the product of major national elections.

They are not, of course. It appears to be a process of random selection (because this is kindergarten), but I am no less proud of her for this. For her part, Kina was clearly over the moon about the surprise. The life of a five year old is punctuated by moments of random personal recognition—run-ins with friends, games of duck-duck-goose, nominations to star studenthood. I miss that kind of joy.

Last night, when Laurea called us from California to say good night, Kina explained patiently how her day had gone, told her mother that she loved her, and then immediately offered to “make her a card”.

Making cards for people has been Kina’s recent preferred expression of love and gratitude. She asks for the subject’s favorite color, pulls out her glittery markers and her notebook (a smaller version of the notebook that I use to draw these morning newspapers), and produces a signed portrait—often after asking me to spell HAPPY BIRTHDAY or THANK YOU.

She has given cards to random people who take her on paddleboards (bottom right, November 27 of this year), family, friends both near and far, and literally anybody who has a birthday. The cards sometimes have art on both sides, are usually delivered flat (not folded), and take between twenty seconds and twenty minutes to produce.