Klara saw a baby who was wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

“I not a baby. I’m a big girl,” she says. “I no have Mickey Mouse ears. When I grow down and I’m a baby again, I wear Mickey Mouse ears.”

She figured out the growing down vs growing up completely on her own.

Folks, if you saw or are still seeing dysfunction on the blog, I have no idea what caused it. This happens every once in a while. I usually send a protest email to Google and they repair it. Right now I’m on vacation and have very spotty access to technology, so it will take me a bit longer to figure it out. I apologise for any inconvenience.

P.S. If you want to help, please fill out this very short form to tell Google this is a legitimate website.

As a result of playing at the pool with a bunch of 10-year-old girls, Klara learned the word ‘popular.’

“Olivia is popular, mommy,” she says of one of the girls. “I popular, mommy? Is my dolly popular? Is mommy popular?”

I’m afraid if she plays with some 12-year-olds she’ll start asking me how many Instagram followers I have.

Comey and Hillary’s emails are on the news again because idiots abound. I’m afraid that this really important article on the assault on science by online outrage-mongers will get no attention. Unlike the stupid emails – and shame on those who still can’t let go of this subject – this is an issue that actually matters.

Last evening, two very young Hispanic men by the pool were loudly explaining to an American friend how they could get legalized in this country.

A stocky middle-aged military guy appeared by the pool. He was wearing one of those T-shirts that list the names of fallen comrades on the back. When he heard the young fellows loudly elaborating on a plan to “marry an American girl for a green card and then dump her ass once the three years run out,” his eyes got very big and round like saucers and he started to fume.

“Why gentleman making funny noises, mommy?” asked Klara who heard his grunts.

As bad luck may have it, the American friend had the brilliant idea to ask the illegal comrades about being drafted. And they started rubbishing the army. The military gentleman looked like he was literally ready to blow his lid. At this point, I was really missing the quiet Brits with their books on the royals and their bizarrely silent and shadowy teenagers.

I was afraid that if I continued answering in a noticeable accent Klara’s questions about “why gentleman so funny, mommy?”, the military guy would decide we were collectively mocking him, so we left the pool.

British guests at the resort are the best. They sit around the pool reading glossy new hardbacks about the royal family. And the genre is popular with people of all ages, it seems. They actually sit there and read stuff like Harry. Conversations with the Prince.

The whole thing is made especially weird by the presence at the pool of a gentleman who looks exactly like a slightly younger Prince Charles. I jump up every time I see him, it’s such a likeness. The gentleman is traveling with two pasty sulky sons in the high teens and a stunningly beautiful, young and clearly expensive wife. It’s like they are a traveling British mystery in the making.