Riding in the car with my teenager

One of my very favorite things to do is have time alone with Nick. It doesn’t happen very often, so when it does I make every effort to enjoy every minute. Last week I needed to get some shopping done, which included new school clothes for both Cody and Nick. Cody despises shopping, which makes it way less enjoyable for the rest of us when we go as a family, so since it’s pretty easy for him to hang out at work with Paul I chose a day and dropped them both off and Nick and I headed to where there’s more than one option for buying new clothes. As in, someplace other than our city. The ride in the car was an hour long and I did very little talking and a lot of listening. Nick found this radio station that he fell in love with because it played awesome classic rock songs. I love that about him. He has an appreciation for good quality music and there were a few times we turned up the volume and sang along together. I know this didn’t happen when I was his age between my Mom and I, which made it feel all the more special, all the more like something we would both remember for a long time. In between belting out songs together, Nick chatted nearly non-stop. I can’t even recall all of what he said because I’m more pleased with the fact that enjoys our time together just as much as I do and feels comfortable having conversations with me. He never hesitates to share how he feels about things and he knows he can ask me anything without feeling uneasy about what my reply might be. He certainly had other options on the ride. He had his laptop and music player and a set of ear phones that would easily drown out any and all sounds around him, including me, but he never reached for any of those things. Instead, we spent the entire time singing, chatting, and laughing together. Then we shopped, ate lunch, shopped some more, and had a similar car ride back to pick up Paul and Cody. We both agreed that we don’t get that kind of day often enough and I decided that it will be my mission to ensure that it does in the future.