I had honestly forgotten that Kina had all of last week off until she leaned back in her chair at dinner last night and let loose this extremely validating headline over her baked pasta. I did not, to be clear, have all of last week off, and so I took her comment to mean that we had all done a reasonably good job at our respective workplaces and schoolplaces—and I mostly agreed. In hindsight, though, Kina had an outstanding week. She spent many hours barely supervised with her friend, splashed around in puddles while we ate brunch, celebrated her father’s vaccine shot, marked the first anniversary of her own newspaper, and ate a chocolate bunny. It did not hurt that her Easter Sunday was largely spent discovering “dozens” of plastic eggs (really just one dozen eggs, continually re-hidden as we marched down the West Side), though it did slightly hurt that she pet a cactus (and thank god for Laurea’s long fingernails and their ability to pluck nearly microscopic barbs from Kina’s hands). All told, not a bad week. Mommy didn’t work overnight even a single time, and we all got a fair amount of sleep. Sometimes, when your coach tells you “good game”, you just gotta take it.

dad