Deirdre, Author at JDaniel4s Mom

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on twitter as @jdaniel4smom and on her blog's FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

I am Unemployed?

January 18, 2012 By Deirdre

When I turned in my resignation letter shortly before JDaniel was born (I was a teacher and we had to turn in our resignation letter in the winter if we aren’t going to be there the next fall in the county I worked in.), I knew I was leaving one career to start another.

My new career was getting to be a staying at home mom. I totally viewed it as a career change because it was.

I traded in teaching others children to get to be home to guide and teach my son.

It has been a demanding job at times. Raising a strong-willed boy and helping he learn really has been the most challenging career I have ever had.

My life has been filled with building forts, spotting him on the playground as he climbs, introducing him to ways to find answers to his multitude of questions, potty training and more.

I have been a nurse caring for his terrible reactions to pollen.

I have been an advocate for healthy eating by introducing him to a variety of healthy foods.

I have been a limit setter. Teaching how to treat others and care for yourself.

I have been a life skill instructor. Teaching my son how to clean up after himself, get dressed, and take care of our house.

The list could go on and on but, I don’t think you need to read all about what I do as a mom. You do the same things and maybe even more.

What got me all fired up about this?

Two weeks ago I took JDaniel in for a check on how the gash on his head is healing with his plastic surgeon. When I checked in I was given a list of data to check to see if it was still accurate.

I skimmed down the list. Everything looked right.

Then I really read each item. Right under my name there was an area for the employer and just to the right of the colon after the word employer was the word unemployed.

I wanted to cross out the word and put stay at home mom beside it but, I didn’t.

I did ask the receptionist if she thought to stay at home moms were unemployed. She totally agreed that they weren’t but, she did say that the hospital system the doctor’s office belongs to doesn’t have code for that.

Well, I think they should! I really think that stay at home mom should be a recognized profession.

When my husband got home, I told him all about the form.

I asked him if I was unemployed.

He is a really smart guy. His answer was “No way!”

He didn’t just say that to make me happy or appease me. He has spent a full day trying to balance playing, house care, potty training, food providing, and everything else that happens during the day. He knows that it is a full-time job.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday and Things I Can’t Say!’s Pour Your Heart Out.

Pause Life for a Moment- Amy’s Assorted Adventures in Africa

January 17, 2012 By Deirdre

I met Amy Morrow of Amy’s Assorted Adventures in Africa during SIT #commenthour on Twitter. She was one of the featured blogs that week. The next week while both attending the #commenthour Amy sent me a tweet stating that she was glad to see me there again.

It was like having a new friend reach out and welcome to gathering except this new friend was all the way in Africa. What a wonderful feeling!

I went on a short-term missions trip to in North Africa many years ago and loved getting to meet many wonderful people. Amy is in a different part of Africa and she is blessed to get to meet and work with many wonderful babies and families every day!

She is an amazing lady. I hope that after you read her post you pause for a moment and visit her blog.

In a world filled with electronic devices, it can be easy to fall into the trap of too much. Even those of us living in the middle of the African bush is not immune. I’ll catch myself watching TV while surfing the web or cross-stitching, AND checking email and Facebook on my phone. It’s all too much!

I’m often asked how I can manage to get so much done. I homeschool, my teenagers, run a charity, direct the care of 22 children at our orphanage and look after whichever newborn or ill (sometimes hospice care) infants that come to our door, while carrying out life in the bush. That is a lot of hats.

Part of what allows me to do this amount of work is my ability to multitask. However, this skill that comes in handy during work hours can be a handicap during down times. Rather than giving my full concentration to one task, I’m spread over a few things at once. My kids have complained that I don’t always give them my full attention when they speak to me. I try, but my mind will often jump all over the place from topic to topic. I’m listening, but I’m not really hearing. Can any of you relate to this?

A few times a week we have what is called load shedding where we lose electricity for a few hours in the evening. This allows Zambia to share the load of electric demands among all the residents of this small sub-Saharan, African country.

We have an inverter which charges batteries whenever there is electricity and when the batteries run out (or are destroyed by lightning [http://admafrica.blogspot.com/2011/11/africa-wins-this-round.html]), we also have a generator so we can power our lights at night.

Now, to add to our challenges, for the next six weeks we will be losing power three days a week so that fiber optics can be laid along the high tension lines running from the capital to a city in the north of Zambia. This small country (it’s the size of Texas) has so few electric lines that even work that won’t benefit us still affects us. This makes us crazy!

However, these next few weeks can be seen as a chance to Pause Life for a Moment. The other day, the power had been off all day. We turned on the generator for a couple hours in the morning so the teenagers could use their computers and the internet to do school work, and I got some office work done. In the afternoon though, everything was off. No fans were turning, no computers humming, no TV playing, no rock & roll playlists blaring. It was quiet.—Well, as quiet as a house can be with 22 preschoolers running around anyway.

This particular afternoon, it was peaceful. The sun was hidden behind clouds and it had been raining off and on all day which created an almost lazy feel to the day.

We had run out of gas for our stove and were forced to cook on a brazier (a little metal bucket type contraption you fill with charcoal and set your pot on top of) that evening. We planned a spicy, one-pot lentil and rice dish that we love. I prepped all the ingredients and carried them out to the porch on a tray so I would have them nearby as I needed them.

My big kids and I gathered on our front porch and either read or chatted while watching the coals turn red, then white until it was time to put the pot on top and begin the meal. There was no hurry—no way to hurry anything along even if we wanted to—and we knew dinner would probably be late, but that was OK. We were sitting together and enjoying a moment of peace. Every once in a while, a child would run up to discuss something with us before heading back to play and the care of their nanny. We weren’t working and could fully enjoy their funny conversations or handmade offerings of grass bracelets or bits of paper glued together. My teenagers chattered away about nothing and everything, and for once they had my full attention. It was a wonderful evening.

Pausing life for a moment may not always be our first choice, but those moments are worth taking advantage of when they happen along.

Helping to Build with Couch Cushions

January 11, 2012 By Deirdre

I heard a loud screech an ran downstairs to see what was the matter.

As I came down the stairs I saw a couch cushion creation!

JDaniel was so upset! I couldn’t figure out a first what was the problem and he couldn’t spit out the words.

After getting him to calm down a little, he explained that the cushion in the front kept falling over. When the cushion fell over the calculator and the spoon would fall to the ground.

Cushion Creation- Trying to Get It to Balance

This didn’t seem devastating enough to me to lead to a scream but, it was for him. JDaniel was totally frustrated.

“Let’s think this through,” I said sitting on the floor beside him. “Maybe we can have some of the books stick out a little bit behind the cushion and they can support the pillow,” I suggested.

“We can try,” JDaniel commented. When we did try it worked fairly well.

With the crisis averted JDaniel was able to get back to work on his creation. I decided to stay near creation central to offer more help if it was needed.

Once one keyboard was up, we added a second and JDaniel to add a few other items.

JDaniel told me as we worked on this project that he needs a chair to sit on in the front and a work area in the back for his friend to work in later in the day. Due to all the items in the back, his friend would need to stand I was informed.

We spent a lot of time building this cushion creation but, JDaniel didn’t try sitting in it until after he had gotten dressed for the day.

Cushion creations we discovered are not a stable area to sit in. As soon as JDaniel sat down, the chair he was sitting on started to learn forward. The chair continued to lean forward causing his knees to touch the cushions. When the cushions started to lean forward too, the whole front including JDaniel started falling.

I was able to catch JDaniel and right the chair. The cushions and everything else spilled onto the floor.

Frustration filled the area once more. It is so hard when something you build doesn’t work.

I tried to talk to him about the need for a structure to have a firm foundation and recommended removing the front cushion so the chair could rest on the wood floor. I tried pointing out the building it on the soft area would cause any structure to fall.

JDaniel didn’t want any part of changing the design plan. His idea was to put the chair back on the cushion and just not sit in it again ever.

We left the cushion creation up and walked through the great divide between the chairs until early afternoon when the heating and air conditioning man came to do the semiannual check-up and needed to get to the vent behind the cushion with the hook on it.

It is hard when JDaniel gets creative ideas that don’t seem to come together. The best thing I can do is try to help him work them out. Listening to what it has envisioned and trying to help bring them to reality is all I can really do.

I really love it when opportunities like this come up that we can work on together. I do wish he wouldn’t be frustrated by the challenges that come with creating.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday, Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop, and some other places.

Pause Life for a Moment- Being Like Dad

January 10, 2012 By Deirdre

My son wants to be like his dad so much! He wants to do what he is doing and “help” with chores he does around the house. Mostly he just want to be around him.Cold CoffeeAlmost morning my husband fixes coffee. JDaniel has decided that he needs to have coffee in the morning too.There is a problem. He doesn’t like coffee. JDaniel has taken a few sips of my husbands and decided that it is terrible. It is even worse when it is still warm.My brilliant husband has invented a solution to JDaniel problem of wanting to have coffee like dad and wanting something he thinks tastes great. All you have to do is mix cold water, milk, and a little sugar and you have cold coffee! This yummy beverage doesn’t even need to be served in a coffee cup.It is just wonderful in a sippy cup or small plastic glass.Sitting With a BookAt various times during the day when my husband is home, he can be found sitting in this red leather chair reading the Bible or the newspaper.If you are a little boy like Jdaniel, you have wanted to do the same thing. You grab one of the wooden chairs from your wooden table and chair set and you drag it over to where your dad is sitting. The chair is then placed beside your father’s chair in just the right spot.Then you have to scurry to the living room and grab a copy of Frog and Toad are Friends or another favorite piece of literature and bring it back to the reading area. Once you have something to read, you can finally sit with your dad and look just like he does. You can silently look at the pictures in the book and pretend to read it and be just like dad.Doing LaundryEvery Sunday afternoon my husband does laundry. I do most of the laundry during the week but, he does his work pants and shirts on Sunday.Almost every Sunday he has a small boy standing on a plastic white stepstool by his side in the laundry room.They do the same steps with my husband giving him directions as to the next step every week.I can hear these words coming out of the laundry room :“Wrap the pants around the agitator carefully.”“Don’t stuff the clothes in or they won’t get clean.”“If you scrub a little Shout on stains with a toothbrush, you can get rid of the stains. Now scrub carefully but, put a little pressure on the brush.Trimming TreesI trim the bushes in the yard but, apparently boys trim trees.When my guys head out to trim trees, I am told that I can stay inside by JDaniel.He really doesn’t trim the trees. He mostly gathers up the branches and twigs and takes them to the curb.Although there are times he breaks pieces off of low hanging branches or tries to scrape off the bark.How do I know about all these events in my guys lives? I tend to peek around corners or out windows and I listen in to their guy talk.Pausing to see how my guys interact brings me such joy. Yes, I could consider the time they are off together as my downtime. (There are times that I do just let them go off.) There are times when hearing them chat and seeing them together makes my day. I love getting to see and hear these memories in the making.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Don’t Worry Douglas Craft

January 6, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie into children’s books.

I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people who have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

This week we read the book Don’t Worry Douglas! is given a new knit hat by his dad and he is asked to be careful with it. Douglas barely makes it out of the house when his hat snags on a tree and is destroyed. His hat is unraveled and he doesn’t want to tell his dad. David Melling’s Douglas is a lot like a lot of children who are afraid to tell their parents when they have done things wrong.

Douglas tries to seek advice on how to fix his hat from his friends. Most of them would just like the yarn for their homes but, they do try and tell him to talk to his dad.

In the end, Douglas does talk to his dad and his dad does understand. He does remind Douglas to be careful with the replacement hat he gives him right off his head.

Of course, he reminded him of that with the first hat too.

I love the reminders in this book to listen and be willing to share when mistakes happen. JDaniel and I talked about both of these concepts after reading the book.

What did we do?

Craft a Bear and a Mom Lesson

This craft was more about me listening than JDaniel painting his Don’t Worry Douglas! bear.

I cut out a bear out of a brown paper grocery bag and set out brown paint with a sponge to paint it.

JDaniel told me that he didn’t want Douglas to be brown. He wanted him to be blue, green, and black.

I thought about forcing him to paint him brown so that I could have a brown bear for this post and decided that it wasn’t that important. What was important was to listen to what he wanted to do!

When he had finished painting, I said it was time to add eyes, a nose, and a mouth. JDaniel declared the project as done. I said that it would be fine with me.

When he left the room, I seriously thought about adding facial features to the bear. Then I thought about what I would be saying to him about listening. If I had added facial features I might have been telling him that it wasn’t okay and that I had to sneak in a face to have it be right. That is not a lesson I want him to learn.

Sometimes crafts may need to be finished the way I see them. This craft did not have to be that way.

If you like this bear craft, here are some more bear activities.

Printable Bear About Colors Activities

Color Bear Bingo Printables

Bear Shape Activity

White Chicken Chili

January 5, 2012 By Deirdre

The weather here has finally turned cold. The chill in the air has to search the internet for warm comfort foods like the white chicken chili I am going to share with you today that I found on How to: Simplify.

I love that this is simple enough for a family dinner or can be dressed up with cheese and crusty bread to serve to guests.

White Chicken Chili

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

1 medium onion diced

2 cups of baked chicken tenders

2 cans of Great Northern Beans, drained

1 can of corn or a small bag of frozen corn

1 can (4 ounces) of green chilies or as much as your family would tolerate

1/2 tsp of oregano

1 32-ounce box of chicken broth

1 dash of salt and pepper

1 teaspoon of lime juice

1/2 of a shredded Mexican cheese blend.

Directions:

1. Saute onion until clear.

2. Add onion, shredded chicken, Great Northern Beans, corn, green chilies, and oregano to a large pot.

3. Stir to combine and then add chicken broth.

4. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 30 minutes.

5. Add salt, pepper, and lime juice.

6. Sprinkle cheese on top of the chili once it is in individual bowls for serving.

This post is linked to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop and

Disclaimer: I did not feed this to my in-law but, I did take some to my mom’s house.

Getting Back to Our Pre-Holiday Schedule

January 4, 2012 By Deirdre

During the holidays I tried to keep JDaniel on schedule for his quiet time in the afternoon and meal times, but I would be the first to admit they veered a little of course.Many of the things that fill our daily schedule were not available during most of December and we had to find different things to do.

What Changed

There was no school, library story times, or playgroup for all or part of the month.The boy next door and his family went away for two weeks. That means there wasn’t a call at four o’clock to see if he could come to play and we couldn’t head out to see if they are out playing after lunch.

Other changes:

It rained cold rain for days.My husband was home for a few days. We loved having him home, but it did change our routine.We tried to spend more time with my mom who lives in the same town we do. We see her on Fridays every week, but I tried to go over more. She loves seeing us despite the fact she has to hunt for her comb and brush after we leave.JDaniel decided to start sleeping later in the morning. Hooray!We rushed to try to get Christmas shopping done before everyone started their Christmas vacation.I didn’t have my mom’s group at church to meet with.

Back to Our Scheduled Activities

While we enjoyed spending time together as a family and JDaniel and I had a great time together ( except for occasional meltdowns) , I am ready to get back to our regular schedule.Yesterday was JDaniel’s first day back at preschool. He really didn’t want to go. I think he believes I get lonely. He just wanted to play with me in his room.

When we absolutely had to go. He went happily. I was so worried he would have a meltdown. I am so glad I was wrong.

Today we will head back to story time at the library. I have really missed seeing the story time librarian Amber. She is expecting in March and should be close finally looking like she is pregnant. I can’t wait to see how she looks.Tomorrow we have preschool again. I hope it goes as well as it did on Tuesday.Next week playgroup and my mom’s group will start back up. Our schedule will be back to its pre-holiday routine. It was hard to leave the routine behind for the holidays, but I will cherish the memories we made and the return to the routine completely next week.
How did your children do with returning to the old routine?

Pausing Life for Moment- Thinking About This Series

January 3, 2012 By Deirdre

When I first started Pause Life for a Moment last spring, it was supposed to be a short series of guest post leading up to Easter. Well, it didn’t end when Easter came. It has continued to be a part of my weekly line up of posts.

During the month of December and a few other times during the year instead of having guest posts, I wrote the posts myself.

I found that I really enjoyed sharing ways to pause life along with lessons I was learning during pauses. It occurred to me that I could change the series to being my posts with a link up for others to share that Pause Life for a Moment post. After a lot of prayers and pausing about making this change, I decided that it is a great idea, but not the right time to make that change.

The reason the series started in the first place was to share with you bloggers that you may not have read before.

I don’t tend to have specific blogging niche that I follow when reading blogs. The blogs I am drawn to cover a wide spectrum. There are a few things all the blogs have in common. They are that they are written by amazing women that love their families, love writing, and are passionate about what they write about.

If you have followed the series from the beginning, you know that there have only been a few Pause Life for a Moment posts are even about the same theme. Those that have been similar are different in that the teller brings to their post their own life experiences.

Due to my indecision about the direction of this series, a line up of guest posters hasn’t been set up for the new year. I will be e-mailing several people this week to see if they are interested in sharing in the coming weeks.

I know some of you are thinking I hope she contacts me. If that is what you are thinking, I would love to hear from you. I can’t 100% promise that you will be picked. Why? When I contact someone about guest posting, I have read their blog for a while. This has given me a sense of their writing style and way of approaching writing. If you let me know you would like to guest post, I will start to follow your writing for a short time and see if we would be a good fit.

This post is not my ordinary Pause Life for a Moment post but, I did want to pause and let you know where I think this series is going.

Kids Lunch Ideas – Clemson and the Orange Bowl

January 1, 2012 By Deirdre

I didn’t grow up in South Carolina. I grew up in Virginia and went to college there. The people in Virginia love their colleges, but I don’t think they get into displaying their school spirit like the do here in South Carolina. Despite there being several colleges in South Carolina, there seem to be two big ones. There are USC and Clemson. Cars in our area carry symbols of one of the other. People dress in the colors and school logos all year around.school pride. JDaniel started asking about why there were paws on so many cars. I told him that they were proud of Clemson. He really liked that idea. Clemson is going to the Orange Bowl this year so, I decided to make JDaniel a Clemson tiger paw lunch.

Kids Lunch Ideas

I made JDaniel had a ham football with Swiss cheese laces, I wanted him to have some protein in his lunch. Next he had plain yogurt dyed orange with a sprinkle and Smarties tiger paw in his lunch. If your children don’t like plain yogurt, you could serve them an orange flavored yogurt instead. Then I added a mandarin orange bowl (pun intended) to his lunch, Finally dyed cream cheese orange and spread it on bread. A Swiss cheese tiger paw was placed on the spread. Oh! JDaniel had milk in a Clemson water bottle. He loves having his own tiger paw bottle.

He really enjoyed the lunch! Yes, he is eating with his fingers. No, I am not happy about it. Yes, he is wearing Star Wars pajamas he got from his Aunt Kate for Christmas. He never wants to take them off.

If you like these kids lunch ideas, here are some more you will want to look at:

Banana and Orange Messages

LEGO Lunch Ideas

Apple Filled Bento Lunch

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday!

Mary Lee and New Year’s at Grandma’s

December 28, 2011 By Deirdre

This is my fourth Mary Lee Tale. The first was Over Near the Tree Sits a Memory and the second was Starting School and Apple Turnovers with Mary Lee, and the third was Mary Lee Remembers a Xanthous Haired Boy. If you like this story, I hope you will give the other three a read.It had been a long semester of college. Mary Lee was so glad to be away from school for the Christmas break.Mary Lee and her family usually spent Christmas at home and then spent the week after Christmas a Grandma Hetty’s. It was a time filled with Grandma’s Hetty’s wonderful cooking, exploring her attic for memories and treasures, and walks around her neighborhood visiting with old friends.After a busy day, Mary Lee and Granma Hetty loved to sit in the kitchen by the fireplace in age-worn rockers and get caught up in the events of the fall. The rest of the family tended to spend time in the parlor playing games or reading books. Mary Lee loved this special one on one time with her grandmother.Grandma Hetty was a little concerned about Mary Lee. She was always studying. Yes, that meant she did well in school, but Grandma felt is was time Mary Lee met a special guy. Maybe this special guy could get her to enjoy her time in college before it ended next year. Maybe he would become something more.Grandma had been hoping and praying for the right time find out if there was even a guy on the horizon to pray for. She waited until the second evening of her visit to bring up the conversation.“How was school?” Grandma asked her rocking slowly.“Things were busy, but I think I did well on my exams!” Mary Lee had answered.“Your mom said that you kept busy with classes, helping with the nursery at church, and tutoring this fall,” Grandma said.“Helping them in the nursery was such a wonderful escape from my studies. I loved getting to spend time with the little ones at church. They truly are precious. There is a little boy named Joseph that just loves to sit in my lap and listen to book after book,” Mary Lee replied.“Did you go to any dances or social while you were at school?” Grandma answered trying to make her question sound innocent and off the top of her head.“Not this semester. I kept my nose to the grindstone. The high-level accounting class took a lot of work to be successful in,” Mary Lee answered glancing over at her Grandma to see if she were really innocently asking the question or had a serious probing looking in her eyes.Grandma looked so peaceful rocking slowly back and forth in the firelight. Mary Lee guessed Grandma was just trying to keep the conversation flowing and wasn‘t digging for any news of dates and boys.Grandma rocked quietly for a few moments trying to decide on just the right words to ask before forming her next question.“Well, I am sure that there were some fellas that tried to draw you away from studying?” Grandma stated as if she were just thinking the question out loud to herself.“There were actually a couple, but I really wasn’t interested in any of them. They wanted to go to football games and socials but weren’t really into studying. If I could find one that likes to spend time in the library and wanted to help out in the nursery at church, I would love to spend time with them,” Mary Lee had answered.“Oh! Football games were such fun when I was in school!” Grandma had said as casually as she could. “Wasn’t there a football player you were tutoring?” Grandma asked.“Yes, there was a guy named Frank. One of the math professors asked me to help he review his notes after each class and get ready for tests. He is a smart guy, but he needs a little help with his notes and processing what he is learning,” Mary commented back.

After pausing for a moment, she continued.

“Frank is so kind. He always walks me back to my dorm from the library and has even brought me an apple or two just like I am a school teacher. I am crossing my finger and sending up prayers that he did well on his exams,” Mary Lee replied.

“I send up prayers for Frank too,” Grandma smiled.“If you would pray that he would math easier, that would be wonderful,” Mary Lee said quietly rocking with her head back. If she had been looking at Grandma she would have seen a huge smile on Grandma’s face as she silently prayed that Frank would not only do well in school but would be the answer to her prayers for Mary Lee’s future. After a time Mary Lee looked over at her Grandma’s silent chair, Grandma had fallen asleep with the sweetest grin on her face. “She must be thinking about Grandpa,” Mary Lee thought. If only she had known the truth! This post is linked to Mrs.Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday!