The Trooper

Emma was always a great traveler. I guess she had to be. As you already know, she spent her first night in a hotel when she was only two days old. The next day we took a 3 hour drive to the next suite hotel, where we stayed for a month awaiting clearance to go home. And when we did finally get to head home with one-month old Emma, that was a 12-13 hour drive that we broke up into two, more manageable chunks.

Our most frequent trip over the years was the trip to see Emma’s grandparents. That was theoretically a 6-hour drive door to door, but since we had to travel down the I-95 corridor, it frequently took 8 hours and sometimes even 10. We had many memorably hairy trips over the years, like the time we got caught in a blizzard and had to get off the highway and find a motel; or the Mother’s Day weekend trip that it took us 3 hours just to cover the mile of road that approached the George Washington Bridge. But Emma always took these trips in stride. When she was small, I would sit in the back with her and we would read or color, sing along to our favorite songs, nap a little, and snack on the large selection of goodies we would bring along. Later she and Sarah would read on their own, watch a movie together, sing along to songs and, of course, snack. No matter how long or frustrating the trip, Emma never seemed to get crabby, even when her grown-up travel companions did. That’s what earned her the nickname, “The Trooper.”

I remember one particular trip home. Emma was probably going on 3. It had been a really long drive and all three of us were really looking forward to just being home. As we rounded the corner onto our street and our house came into view, Emma piped up in her sweet little voice, “Home again, home again, jiggety jig!”

P.S. Bonus points to the reader who can correctly name the nursery rhyme that that phrase is from.