Still, getting him to hang out with me is good, because as quiet as it’s kept, I really enjoy spending time with him too.  I think he's pretty cool. I try to tell him without  coming out and saying it all the time. If I do that he kind of just rolls his eyes at me.

As for getting him to hand with me, the trick is to figure out things we can do together and trick him in to believing that the thing I’ve planned is exactly the thing he wants to do.

Take this weekend, for example. We spent all day Saturday together. I wanted to visit a little rural town in Lafayette County, about a 45 minute drive from our home.

It’s not the kind of thing that he would have been too eager to do. I was afraid he would say he didn’t want to go. So, I told him I had discovered a little book store with a coffee shop in it. Jordan’s favorite place in the world is a book store. And he loves coffee. He could spend and entire day in a Barnes and Noble. So a book store with a coffee shop was just the ticket. Truth is, I wanted him to visit this little town and to meet some of the folks I’d met there earlier in the week - artists, shop owners and the mayor’s wife.

He actually got excited about the trip.

We played the radio, sang, and talked about music the entire trip. I found out he actually like some country music, he says it’s got soul. He loves Johnny Cash. The drive was great, I loved it and I could tell he did too.

When we got to the little book store I introduced him to a few folks who were hanging out there. He got a cup of coffee and started up a conversation with the store owner about some books they had both read and loved. Then an artist who has a studio in the bookstore basement took him down to show him where she works. Oh yeah, Jordan fancies himself a bit of an artist. He loves to draw and has been experimenting with pastels and pencils.

This was the first time he’d been in an artist’s working studio. Bingo, he loved that too. After that, I could get him to go with me to some of the little women’s clothing shops that I had wanted to visit. He even got into picking out outfits with me.

On the way back we talked about the people he’d met and he said he was actually inspired to get home and do some drawing.

I was happy because we’d spent the day together and my teen had actually talked to me, we acted a little silly singing in the car and we had a good time.

How do I know? When we got home he said, “mom that was fun. I really had a nice day.”

Go figure.

Now I know this won’t work every weekend. But, hey I’ll take one weekend like that month. It’s going to take a month to come up with another way to get him to spend the day with his old mom.