Thursday, June 28, 2007
Last week, I had the opportunity to be the good mom and provide some fun for my son and his friend. So? I realized how long it had been since we spent a day steeped in enjoyment. We had absolutely no conflict. How can this be for a mom and her teenager? Let me say, it’s the closest to heaven one can get. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but then maybe not.
The peace really began in the car on the 80 mile drive down to this fun. We shared a hearty laugh over an incredibly slow driver we were stuck behind on the two lane highway. When I could, I tried to take a side street to get ahead of him, but signals and traffic wouldn’t allow this maneuver to succeed. We were together in this failed goal, laughing when we ended up right back where we started, behind him turtling along.
Later when I took a wrong turn, my son had a blast telling his friend some amazing statistics on how I have such a tendency. Could there be a metaphor here? In any case, we found our way and when my son bounced with joy when seeing the slides at the waterpark, I couldn’t help but remember his pre-pubescent days of harmonious agreement. Yes, I admit it—a blatantly exaggerated statement.
My point is that the whole experience was a reminder of how much we need to incorporate more such days into our lives so when we look back, we can say the teenage years were not always about the struggle for autonomy.
We can officially say we were in agreement about at least one thing—our definition of a great day.
Robert Krzisnik said,
February 4, 2008 at 10:01 am
Thanks for this post. Reminded me of my similar experience with my two teenagers a couple of months ago, when I really needed to take some time off with them and just have quality time together, to reconnect. And it took us about a month of preparation for me to find out what they would enjoy doing with me, what would met their needs and mine also… And just this planinig seemed like half the fun, and, most importantly, we all felt we were actually cooperating in finding out how to have nice time together, to have a long agreement as you put it. The result was 5 blissful days in London, just hanging out together, going here and there, laughing a lot, yes, it’s the closest to heaven one can get. My eyes were nearly all the time full of tears because of the immense love and mutual support that was flowing between us. I guess it gave us enough fuel to last for months. And we are already planning what to do next, how to repeat it since it was such a fulfilling experience for all of us.