I've Got You Babe

We have a theme song.

I sent Alex to school yesterday morning, met friends for a farewell coffee, hurried home to play tetris with our luggage, checked our documents (AGAIN), ran the vacuum, and drove back to town and picked him up again. The sun shone beautifully. It was that type of warm, slushy gorgeous late-winter day that arrives by surprise and fills the town with good humor and hope that the dark days are almost over. It was the perfect day to embark on the first leg of this great journey.

So, I picked Alex up. His teachers hugged us both and wished us luck. Alex beamed with the kind of reserved pride I have come to recognize when he is both excited and intimidated by what lies ahead. He knows this is no ordinary trip. It is big. BIG. This isn't like a weekend at his grandparents or even a week's vacation at the beach. This is BIG. He knows it, and so does his best friend, Nate. We walked Nate to his car and the two, small, four-year-old boys embraced like brothers heading off to war. Then Nate presented Alex with a gift - a bag filled with snacks for the plane, a game, and a singing-pirate dog that immediately became the most meaningful, most beloved thing Alex has ever owned. Nate's mother, who recognizes the pirate-heart in my boy, shows him how to press a small button on the dog's hand. Sonny and Cher sang, you guessed it, "I've Got You Babe," as the dog swayed and his treasure box of plastic hearts blinked on and off.

Alex was captivated. In love. With the dog. With Nate. With the great fortunate of being a boy who got a gift on warm, sunny day. He pressed the dog's hand over and over, at least 50 times on the four mile ride home. Occasionally, he paused and said, "I love this, but it can't replace my real Nate. I will always want my real Nate with me." True friendship is such a rare gift.

At home, Alex ate lunch, watched a little TV and played the dog song over and over as Steve and I ran around attending to last minute details. As I was checking our documents (AGAIN), Alex ran in the kitchen and announced, "Mommy, I cannot go to China. I cannot miss school. I love it too, too much." Those of you who know this boy have a tiny sense of the song-and-dance we have done for 18 months, have a tiny sense of the number of times I have peeled this clinging boy off my leg at school, have a vague memory of the pathetic video of a boy hiding behind the couch pillows when it was time to go to school... this is the same boy, now willing to let this same mother fly to the other side of the world for two weeks and leave him home so he can go to school! (To his defense... he did proudly tell me a month ago that for the rest of his life he will always want to go to school).

Well, I will fast forward because I am bogging you down with the details of our departure for NJ... we were finally in the car. Thirty minutes of Sonny and Cher. Then, silence for one hour as Alex napped. But, well before the halfway point, he was awake. We knew it because Sonny and Cher were singing again. And again. And again. Ironically, while Alex slept, we had heard a story on the radio about a list of songs being leaked that are used in terror interrogations. They included songs from Sesame Street and Barny. Somewhere in the Poconos, Steve added another song to the list. I could not. I had seen the embrace of our two boys, and I knew, for me, "I've Got You Babe" would be the theme song of my journey.

As I rock my new baby to sleep, and tuck my growing boy into his hotel bed, you know what song I'll be singing.