A Night to Reconnect

I know when my kiddos are being so rotten that I just want to get some space from them, is when they need me to draw closer to them. Such has been the case with Jordan and I lately. These teenage years are no joke. I had foolishly thought things would be smoother sailing because I had boys. If raising teenage boys is this trying, I'm even more grateful now that I never had any daughters :)

So Jordan has been exhibiting all his teenage glory, moodiness, failing grades, just all around bad attitude; What's a mom to do. My solution was to take him to a concert, he's 14 and never been to any concerts. A friend had posted about a christian band that would be preforming not too far from our home. Once I got over the idea of I'm not rewarding bad behavior, I'm reconnecting with child who is craving more attention, I ordered our tickets. They weren't the best of seats; the furthest section from the stage and second to the last row. Jordan was fine with the seats, because this was something that we were doing just the two of us, no brothers allowed.

See that little hand next to the 3? That's Jordan in our seats :)

The View from our ticketed seats

The day of the concert we packed up the younger two who were going to spend the night with our friends from Growing into Me. Once the little guys were happily on their way to a fun filled night, Jordan was allowed to plan the rest of our night. Instead of going out to a restaurant for dinner, Jordan opted for extra electronic time and grabbing fast food on our way to the concert (YUCK! The things I do for my kiddos...lol). Once at the arena, which was a tiny place, we easily found our seats even though it was a sold out show. A friend of mine was volunteering as staff for the event, so we spent some time with him showing us around. Finally the music starts and we head back to our seats. The first act was just this guy and his guitar on the stage, Jordan wasn't too impressed :) The second act was a christian group that is known to others but was new to us, their music was a bit more lively. I had forgotten until the second act started just how LOUDLY Jordan claps. I had to bite my tongue to refrain from commenting on just how annoying I found his clapping. I'm glad that I did, I was having a great time watching him clap and dance in front of our chairs. By the third group Jordan had his hands raised in worship and the biggest smile on his face. I sure have missed seeing that smile!!!

John Tibbs

Audio Adrenaline

Finding Favor

During the intermission we walked around for a bit, until my friend asked if we'd like to move to seats closer to the stage. So we ended up stage side for the final act, the one we wanted to see. Jordan had an absolute blast!! He was singing along with just about every song and was very grateful for the better seats. (A quick shout out to my friend for being so awesome and helping to make the evening even better for Jordan)

Newsboys from our stage side seats

LOOK AT THAT SMILE!!

Newsboys

We were surprised to our car being snow covered when we came out of the concert. Figuring that we wouldn't be getting out of our parking spot any time soon, we sat in the truck for a bit looking through the pictures and videos we took. Then because it was still Jordan's night, we stopped for sundaes and french fries on our way home. Once home we stayed up into the wee hours of the morning looking up songs for the new to us bands and danced, sung along, and laughed until exhaustion won out.



I'm so glad Jordan and I had the evening to reconnect. He wasn't a "big bad, having to impress everyone else" teenager, he was my happy go-lucky Jordan for a bit. While it only lasted until his brothers came home, I hope now that he have found his "happy self" that we'll all get to see more of it.