YOUR FAMILY
My One and Only
An only child has an only child, and she
wouldn’t have it any other way
BY LAUREN SANDLER
Iwas trolling through Craigslist, looking for a secondhand Flexible Flyer Wagon, when I idly clicked over to the vacation swaps. There it was: a garret by the Canal St. Martin, just a few
blocks from where we had honeymooned for a week
in a borrowed apartment. We knew the exquisite
boulangerie on that very block. The couple was looking for a place in Brooklyn for a week. We had miles.
We had wanderlust. We said yes.
Some friends clucked that it would be too hard
with our then-baby daughter, Dahlia. (“A six-floor
walk-up? Are you crazy?”) Others rolled their eyes
in camped-up jealousy. It was indeed a challenge: all
those flights of stairs, her lunchtime fussiness gath-
ering storms of scorn, the relentless effort to keep
every one of the host couple’s dust-caked tchotchkes
out of her mouth. But we considered this a tiny price
for those days of watching her play with French kids
at playgrounds, marvel at the sights in the museums
and savor the caramel ice cream at Berthillon.
