Dear Ivan:

I don’t know if you were able to take a break in the middle of your day today at Kindergarten, but Donald Trump gave a press conference today in which he made a number of representations of fact, including the scope of his Electoral College margin of victory, which were — to be generous — not so much true so much as they were false.

Of course, in the new Trump reality, while everyone else is lying and fraudulent and fake, anything he says he considers to be gospel truth (even, when it contradicts things he said before).

Given this, I thought this presented a really terrific opportunity to provide a piece of advice, which is this:

Lying is lying.  There are no alternative facts.  If something is untrue, it’s untrue.  It’s not “alternatively true.”

I mention this because you’re only 5, but as you get older, more and more opportunities will present themselves to you to lie, to dissemble, to obfuscate (look it up), and I’m telling you to resist the temptation.  Now, that’s easy for me to say, not so easy to always do.  But, just remember, if you get in the habit of always telling the truth, you’ll make life much easier, because you won’t have to bother yourself trying to remember lies you’ve told.

Meantime, eat a vegetable once in awhile. . . . oh, and have fun!

Love always,

Daddy