Nanny #1 asked how I feel about the TV being on around Klara. I’d decided long ago that I wasn’t going to turn our lives into a useless battle over screens. Screens exist, and trying to manufacture for a kid a reality where they don’t is a waste of time.

I will offer Klara interesting alternatives to screens. And when I can’t or don’t have time or lack the energy, I won’t try to assuage my feelings of guilt through artificial screen-time limits or things of that nature.

The nanny said I was extremely laid back in everything that concerns the baby, and it’s true. My goal is to figure out her needs and cater to them while helping her learn to satisfy her needs on her own. For instance, this week she fell asleep without any help during the day twice. It’s a huge milestone because she usually needs quite a bit of help with falling asleep. I’m happy that I noticed she was ready to start doing it on her own and gave her space to do it.

One good thing about being an old parent of an infant is that all of my self-representational goals were solved a long time ago. I don’t need to use the baby to cultivate a certain image of myself because I’m so past that stage in my life. So when people ask when I will start teaching her to read or to speak Spanish, I have nothing to say to them because I’m not thinking about Klara this way. I just want to spend time with her, making sure she is happy and has fun. I don’t need her to be a sort of a trained poodle who makes me feel special by demonstrating knowledge of 5 languages at the age of five (or at any age) or crazy things like that. As for reading, it will happen when it needs to happen. Klara’s father, by the way, didn’t even know his letters until the age of 7 but he went on to become a passionate reader and a PhD.

And if it turns out that she’s not into reading, that’s fine, too. Maybe she’ll be into drawing or sports or plants or even puppies. I’m not looking to make her into a little clone of me. As I said, I’m way too ancient for that way of thinking.

Even literary critics can be very clumsy writers. “After the writer’s sudden disappearance in August of 2015. . .” writes one critic. In reality, the writer didn’t suddenly disappear. He died of lung cancer. People who don’t know what happened to the writer might conclude he was kidnapped or went missing.

We all need to be very careful with our writing. And I say it as somebody who is still wriggling with shame after writing, “Since Franco’s downfall, Spain has established a working democracy.” As my thesis advisor pointed out when she read this atrocious sentence, “What downfall? He died.”

The first nanny came in for her interview, and she is stunned with how advanced and developed Klara is. She even asked me if I was sure she is only going to be 4 months old this weekend. And I know she isn’t just saying it to flatter me. N and I constantly remark that Klara looks like somebody who is ready to get up, walk to the door and say, “Dad, can I have $40 and the car keys?” She has a very alert and intelligent look.

What’s really throwing me for a big, plump loop, though, is that Klara seems to adore this nanny. She smiles and laughs at her like she’s her long-lost relative. And I like this nanny, too. This is very disconcerting because I was prepared for a long and painful search. I have two more nannies coming in this week and the next. Can it be possible that the very first one is the best one?

Oh, the incredible kindness of the economy where a journalist stays employed after writing something as profoundly dumb as the following:

Donald Trump Had to Use a Teleprompter: And it was somehow even more unsettling than his usual nonsense.

No, you brainless piece of idiotic loser, it’s not about who uses teleprompters and who doesn’t. This isn’t a reality TV show, you dumb fuck. And if you can’t figure that out on your own, find a job where you can keep silent and not subject the world to your terrifying stupidity.

Among some of [Bernie’s] supporters there will be lingering frustration and a belief that the party’s leaders conspired to deprive them of their choice. This isn’t an accurate or fair assessment, but Mrs. Clinton must address it.

No, she must not. Remember birthers? Were they persuaded by overwhelming evidence that Obama was not born in Kenya? No, they were not. It’s the same with these freaks. They will cling to their deranged belief that Hillary conspired with Wasserman Schultz against Bernie because it feeds their woman-hating conviction about the conniving nature of “sneaky” and “lying” women. Noticing them in any way or dignifying them with as much as a nod is a mistake.

These freaks stink to high skies and normal people should pretend they don’t exist, just like one does when somebody emits a loud fart in company.