I decided to make a list of the ten best days of my life.  I chose the first ten that came to mind.  I didn’t want to think about it very much because I’ve probably had hundreds of “best days.”  And I expect that if my good luck continues, I’ll have a lot more. So here are the “first” top ten. 

1.     The birth of my son Seth

2.     The birth of my son Jeremy

3.     Biking to the top of Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island (four miles and eighty      hairpin switchbacks) without stopping

4.    Seth at twenty-one, presiding over “assembly” with all his counselors and campers as Village Director at Camp Becket.

5.    Peter’s 65^th birthday when Seth’s “gift” was a surprise scavenger hunt leading us to places from Peter’s childhood years in New York City

6.    Jeremy as the hilarious emcee at our twenty-fifth anniversary party

7.    Seth teaching his 3^rd grade bi-lingual class in the South Bronx about immigration and having Peter talk about his experience as an immigrant

8.    Our day with Jeremy in Cerro Navio, a poor district in Santiago, Chile, where he was doing micro-lending

9.    Seth and Jeremy attempting to scare us by roaring like hippopotamuses in the bushes below our open cabin as we were trying to fall asleep in a camp on Lake Kenai in Zimbabwe in 2000.

10. Publishing my first (and only) op-ed in The New York Times

Looks like eighty per cent of my best days were because I’m a mother.