v

9.21.2007

seven nights in london

If I had it to do all over again, I would have studied dance, I would have gone to school in Manhattan, I would have had a baby in almost any month but September. This is a marathon of a month for parents of a school-age child. On top of Back to School Night and the start of soccer season and the Jewish holidays, which we observe in our fashion, and the anxiety about how long it will take until the homework feels excessive and the initial steps into applying for schools next year, I must plan a birthday celebration. And it feels like the one thing that makes all these other things feel like too much. One year, the year my father died, I was so discombobulated, we didn’t celebrate Isaac’s birthday until the following spring. I suppose there is no perfect month to have a baby, but I know that September is perhaps the least perfect month to have one, at least once after they start school. I also know that the first September he’s away, I’ll miss the rush of all this more than anything else in the world. Amazingly, there are in all likelihood only six left.

This afternoon I entered a sweeps for a week in London. It’s an almost perfect sweeps. One entry. A short deadline. (It closes October 31.) My only gripe: It doesn’t disclose the hotel. As the OFFICIAL RULES not, it does come with $2,000 in cash, which is always nice.

To enter, click HERE: