Come ride with me…

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I hadn’t seen it coming… I hadn’t expected them to grow up so quickly. Our son, now a tween – almost a teenager. I noticed it slowly… one day I went to slip on his new shoes to run out to the mailbox and they were too big for me.

I go to hug him and find that we are the same height. I even tell him that pretty soon, I’ll be standing on the bottom step of our staircase to hug him.

Then, last week, my mom was visiting (she just lives 20 minutes away) and she had brought her “little white car” as the kids call it. I had to run to my friends house, in our neighborhood, and my mom offered up her little white car. I was just a moment later that I hear footsteps, louder than mine, come charging down the stairs.

Our son jumps into the passenger seat, buckels up and is ready to go. He knows that he is the only one that can take this spot, as his siblings are all much younger than him. This is when it hits me… again, I have a friend beside me.

Yes, he is my son, but more than that – he is my friend. He is someone that I like talking to, someone that I like laughing with and someone that I like teaching. Our time alone in the car is one of my favorites. It might only be a three minute ride to a friend’s house, but it’s time that he cherishes and so do I. It’s a time when he isn’t connected to any electronics (they aren’t allowed in the front seat- that’s the person that has to talk to the driver. “Good rule, mom!” haha!) So I can use that time to just connect.

I always make sure to only drive when i know that we are safe… this is the rule when I have any of my kids in the car. If I have tires that I trust, I feel better about it. The rain and even snow don’t bother me because my dad uses Cooper Tires on my mom’s car (that’s what we have on all of our cars, too). They are the only tires we trust in the winter months – I don’t think we could brave the messy highways without them… espcially when the kids are in the car. In my opinion, Cooper Tires just have better traction… that’s what it boils down to.

Mickey handles all of the tire stuff at our house, but I do know that we need to make sure that we are doing these 5 things:

Important factors in tire care are:

Checking the inflation pressure
Rotating the tires regularly
Getting the tires repaired when they need it.
Having the tires inspected regularly
Have the car aligned and checked.

Those seem like such little reminders, but they make a huge difference. We almost didn’t pass an inspection once, years ago, when the car needed to new tires. They weren’t that old, but we lived in PA at the time and it was always snowy there. That’s when we first suggusted to get Cooper Tires (for the snowy roads). It’s been many years and a few moves… and we haven’t looked back.

So, for now, I will go out and enjoy my time with just the two of us… because pretty soon he will be over the fun of this and our next tween will be ready in line.