Once upon a time. road trips with my kids meant extra laundry, copious amounts of packing, arming myself with gazilllions of distracting activities and perhaps a little bit of prayer. A good word asking for a smooth ride free of diaper blow outs and car sickness.
This past weekend I had the opportunity to take a wee trip with my oldest, just the two of us, on an over night adventure of sorts, as she had a volleyball tournament out of town. You know that moment, when you look at your baby and are dazed and amazed at the intelligent, witty and fabulous person she has become? Yeah, that happened.
Our original plan had us leaving our home before 4pm, the hope to get our 2 1/2 hours of driving under our belts before darkness truly set in. Due to stressful circumstances beyond my control, we were not able to leave until closer to 6pm. When we did finally make our exit it was with a quickly packed bag, a rushed feeling and a heavy heart. Not the way I wanted to start this adventure. We left as the winds picked up and the snow started coming down. Fabulous (insert sarcastic font).
I am a confident driver. I actually enjoy driving, but I don’t love the white knuckle driving. The wind, the snow and then running over the already dead and squished possum did not make my ride anymore enjoyable. What did turn my trip around, my girl. She chatted, she joked, she complained….about all things teen. We snacked and we laughed. She played navigator when my GPS punked out and tried to get us good and lost. She appreciated my stories and perhaps even thought I was funny? A huge step in the Mama- Daughter relationship. And when we arrived at our destination she quickly declared “Amazing Race Mom!” as an entire Hockey Team had the nerve to pull up in a big ass bus in front of us. We parked, we ran, we tripped and giggled, we beat that Hockey Team to the check in counter. We declared ourselves the winner of that leg of the Amazing Race. No wrong turns, fastest rest stop ever, and beating Hockey Players in Canada? Victory.
Bigger Victory, quality time with my girl and being ridiculously, over the top, proud of her.
My blog, so I declare her brag worthy. 
Hope your weekend was as packed with sweet surprises as mine was….
Sounds like a very worthwhile getaway with your daughter…and yes she is blog worthy!
Glad you made it in front of the hockey team…whew!
And, totally blog worthy:)
So glad you enjoyed your time with her and happy that you arrived safely. She is so beautiful!
Sounds like a great time. I love taking my kids 1 on 1, you can learn so much from them. I wish I had more time to do 1-1 things with them.
Oh, I love this post so much. And I miss you!
Awesome post about an awesome daughter from an obviously awesome mom. (Don’t know if your teen uses awesome as much as my kids used to!!). So loved those days with my kids and yes, it just gets better as they get older!! I do NOT miss the diaper days and traveling with tots! And now? They help drive!!