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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

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+.

Letting Him Have a Cup and a Cone

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We decided to go to a wonderful ice cream spot in our town on the 4th of July. It used to be small train station along railroad tracks. Now it is small ice cream spot along the railroad tracks. They serve soft serve chocolate or vanilla ice cream with a wide array of topping for a very reasonable price.

While he waited in line JDaniel watched for a train. They don’t come by often in the evening. We usually hear them in the middle of the night.

He really wanted to play in the large puddle behind him, but I persuaded him that his feet would get drenched and he listened to my advice!

You can get your ice cream in a cup or a cone. JDaniel really wanted a cone. Due to the fact that ice cream can fall off a cone and become unable to be eaten unless it is is licked off the ground. (Which we won’t allow him to do) He conceded to having a cone in a cup.

Once he sat down he pulled the cone out and set it to the side. He never touched it again. I guess he just likes the idea of a cone.

The ice cream was yummy, but JDaniel hardly made a dent in his. He is usually the first one finished.

Why?

He was distracted by the discussion he decided we needed to have on fireworks. JDaniel knew we would be watching some later in the evening. He wanted to know everything we knew about how they worked and what they are made of.

We ended up taking the rest of his ice cream home to have later.
I bet next time we go it will eat it all!
What are your children interested in learning about now?

Sharing a Joyful Moment- Tell Me Yours (Every Comment is Chance to Win)

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There are so many joyous moments in my life. I have been truly blessed in many ways, but one that stands out is the day I finally got married.

My sisters both got married in their thirties and I am sure my mom had given up all hope I would ever get married. There had been wonderful men I had dated in my twenties and thirties, but I had a lot of homework to do before I was ready to get married and just wasn’t ready for them.

I am so blessed that by the time I was ready my husband was too. We were both late bloomers in the marriage department. Both were in our forties and both had never married before.
Planning our wedding was just wonderful. I almost everything we chose to celebrate our special day. One of my favorite wedding details was a Shutterfly photo album that we used as a guest book. It was filled with important events and people in our courtship.

I have never understood the need to have people you invited to your wedding tell you they came by signing their name in a book. Our photo guest book has messages of encouragement around photos we love.

Here are some of them:

The cover fo the guest book.
A picture I love taken at Great Falls Park in Virginia.
 These are my matron of honor and bridemaid’s wedding pictures.
This is the church where we got married.

I’d like to hear about your moment of joy! Share your story and upload a photo (optional), and in return Shutterfly will gift you $5 off your next photo book to commemorate life’s joyous moments, and you”ll be entered for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

Do you have a favorite photo that captures it? Upload your photo below with your story for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Shutterfly. The opinions and text are all mine. Offer valid for $5 off one photo book order and valid for one-time redemption per member. Taxes, shipping and handling will apply. BlogFrog hosted gift card contest live from June 17th to July 14th. For $200 gift card, participants must have uploaded a photo to be eligible. A winner will be randomly chosen and announced on July 18th. All participants remain the copyright holder of their photos.

What was  a joyful moment in your life?

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Pause Life for a Moment- Blue Cotton Memory

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I fell in love with Blue Cotton Memory’s writer and her blog when I read her post on the Six Mom Stages of Boys in January of 2010. It is a wonderful post on how mothering never end it just changes over time. She inspires me to be a better mom and challenges me to think about motherhood in new ways. I am thrilled she is here visiting with you today.
Pausing Places

By Maryleigh at Blue Cotton Memory

I love rain storms. Rain storms are the pause button to my schedule. Maybe it’s baseball or football that keeps you busy – it’s soccer for me. When the rain comes, my schedule comes to a grinding halt.

“I’m bored. What can we do?” the boys always ask

“Fill the emptiness,” I answer.

“With what?” they persist.

“With big and little thoughts,” I think. “Press in to the quietness. Let its peace be like a soothing balm rubbed into the cracked and worn feet of my soul, soothing my walk, giving me rest.”

“’This is the resting place, let the weary rest’”; and, “’This is the place of repose’”–but they would not listen” (Isaiah 28:12)


“It is important to learn how to handle nothing-ness,” I answer. I go into a great story about back in the day when I was their age, only 3 TV channels existed. On a rainy day we built card houses, watched NASCAR races, played cards or board games. . . read books. On sunny days, porch wall jump-offs, sidewalk roller skating, tree climbing, daisy chain construction, bee catching.

We never uttered the words, “I am bored.” If we gave them a mouth-full of whine, they gave us an afternoon full of chores. We wisely kept our complaints to ourselves.

“Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature” (Albert Einstein)


Where do you go when nothing-ness comes? Where is your Pausing Place? Pausing Places – a place to sit and let nothingness wash through, like clear water in a rushing stream – clearing away the debris of my soul, clearing away for freshness and new growth.

My back porch, during a rain storm – that is one of my pausing places. Sometimes it is my kitchen when no one is home – and I can throw myself into the cooking and think about life without interruptions – while making something wonderful for my boys.

“Solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no condition”

(Amelia E. Barr)


Other times, it is wrapping myself in a blanket, curling up with a good book and my knitting. I would read a bit, knit a bit. That happened the other day. My son flung himself across the end of my bed – and just looked at me.

“There’s nothing to do,” he said, baleful eyes woefully wooing me to create “something” for him out of nothing.

“I’m having a great time,” I said. “I’m loving this. I’m sorry there is nothing you want to do – but there is plenty you can do. But – I am not going to let your frustration mar my nothing-to-do-time.

He sighed.

“One of the most important things you need to learn is how to find peace and joy in the nothingness of a day,” I gently coaxed.

He wallowed a bit more, making sure I knew he was frustrated. I wouldn’t be baited. I sent him on his way.

Filling each moment with him-centered activities does not prepare him to live a fully enriched life. If they do not learn to embrace the quiet times, the stopping times, then later, they might fill those moments with harmful activities – just to fill the nothingness.

One of the most important skills in life is to learn how to embrace those pauses. My boys, well, they need to learn how to make something out of nothing. Their day is so chocked full of activities they become bewildered when they face, what they think, is the Great Monster Nothingness – which I have discovered to be a great friend.

Learning to turn nothing into blessing – what a great life-skill. Bring on those rainy days!

Muffin Tin Monday on Sunday- Happy Fourth of July

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I am participating in the Displaying Independence sponsored by Mom Loop tomorrow so, I decided to post this yummy tin a day early.

JDaniel had a burger with a cheese and bread star, Two Bears Farm’s Corn and Black Bean Salad, potato salad made with red potato stars, strawberries, red grapes and peanut butter fudge brought for me to the Type A Conference by Lisa of Two Bears Farm.

JDaniel loved everything. He is still into eating with his hands rather than a fork. He was able to pick up the stars, burger and fruit with his finds. A fork was used for the corn and black bean salad.

The corn and bean salad is the first recipe to be featured in my summer series. Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom series. It runs through July and August.

How does the Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom work?

You just leave me a comment on a Muffin Tin Monday post with a link to a recipe you think I should get JDaniel to try a muffin tin. If I use your recipe, I will mention your blog in the post it appears in along with a link back to it.

The salad was a huge success. If you would like to try it, please visit the link I have included above.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

I am participating in Jeanna Journey’s 2nd Annual Comment Challenge. It should be fun!

 
 

Displaying Independence- Helping with Breakfast

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It used to be simple to get breakfast ready in the morning. JDaniel would wait at the kitchen table for me to bring over his cereal bowl and milk cup. I would quickly pour everything into its correct serving piece and place it on the table.

At three he decided he could “help” me get breakfast ready. He started to carry his stepstool over to the counter just below his breakfast bowl and wait for me to bring over the cereal box.

Pouring the cereal into the bowl was a job he decided that he wanted to do himself. He has usually been able to do a good job at this. There were always a few pieces that fell to the floor, but not many. He didn’t overfill his bowl which was a miracle.

He would then hop down from his stool and rush for the refrigerator to get the milk jug. If it was heavy, he would let me carry it over for him. If it was light, he felt he could carry it.

Then the scariest part of cereal preparation occurred. He wanted to pour the milk into the bowl himself. He has a terrible sense of pouring liquids. I would hold part of the jug handle, but. the milk still seemed to slosh out of the bowl and cascade down the cabinets and or his pajamas.

Thankfully he has recently conceded that he could use my help with the milk pouring. My body can cease to tighten up and relax now that I can pour the milk.

The most precarious part of the cereal preparation happened when he tried to step off the stepstool carrying the bowl. It was kind of like watching a tightrope walker step out onto the high wire. I watched him carefully try to hold the bowl and step down at the same time. The milk would lick at the sides of the bowl most days without spilling to the floor. There were times that he stepped down too quickly and everything would flow out of the bowl and onto the floor. This truly frustrated him and me. It might mean we would have to begin the process again.

Once the bowl had made it onto the table, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief .

The bowl has been know to fall of the table when he tries to get out the final spoonful of milk, but beyond that it seems to remain in its spot on the table until he tries to drink the milk out of the bowl.

What activities do your children want to do by themselves?

This post is a part of the Displaying Independence celebration that begins Monday here and on the following blogs.

On July 4th the moms of Mom Loop would love for you to link up posts on your children displaying their independence. Your post could be all words or pictures or a mixture of both.

You can post your link on any of the blogs listed below. We would love for you to display this button or link to any of our blogs on your post.

 


Blog Hosts are the following:
 
The Activity Mom, June Clever Nirvana, Milk and Cuddles and Quirky Momma along with me.
We are all co-community leaders of Mom Loop!
 
 

Read.Explore.Learn.- Sunflowers

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I want to take a moment to congratulate Just Starting Out! She is the winner of the June Edition of the Read.Explore.Learn. Summer Reading Challenge. She will be receiving a $10 gift code to Amazon.com.


Welcome to first week of the Read. Explore. Learn Summer Reading Challenge- July Edition! 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-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books. Remember each post you link up counts as an entry in the the July Edition of the Summer Reading Challenge.

Steps:

  • Link your activity below.

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

    Read.Explore.Learn badge

  • Please try to visit at least three of the other people that 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:

We also read Sunflower House by Eve Bunting . The little boy in this story gets a wonderful idea about how to plant sunflower seeds in his yard. He decides they should be arranged in a circle to create a play place. What fun he and his friends have playing in it!

To be like the Sun by Susan Marie Swanson is a wonderful book about the life cycle of a sunflower seed. It starts with the dirt being moved to make room for the seed. The seed is told it will do work. Not the work of a thistle or a radish, but a work on its own. After the seed it underground the girl who planted it wants to know if it can hear the rain when it falls. Once it forms leaves, roots and a stem a bug will form.

What did we do?

Paper Plate Greenhouse

 

We had fun trying to grow seeds in the paper plate greenhouse. This is really just a plastic bag with wet cotton ball between two plates cutout to look like a house.

Wove Petals to a Plate

ABCs of Exploring Books with Children: R-Z

I helped with some of the weaving, but JDaniel did a lot of it. He was able to put the ribbon through the holes and then through the plate.

He got tired of using yellow ribbon and asked for the box of ribbon to select a new color. I had saved ribbons from a bouquet of balloon JDaniel had been given my his Nana for Easter. He loved “exploring” the ribbon

Here is our final product. It looks like it has had some of its petals plucked off. JDaniel was very proud of it and thought it really belonged on the the fridge.

 

What is the opposite of tree?

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We were pulling out of the drugstore parking lot on Monday. We had just dropped off JDaniel’s allergy prescriptions and were headed to playgroup. He was leaning one elbow on his car seat with his fist holding up his head. He looked so pensive back there staring off into space.

“What are you thinking,” I asked him.

“Mom, what is the opposite of hot?” he replied.

“Cold is the opposite of hot,” I answered him.

“Okay, what is the opposite of big?” he wanted to know.

“Little or tiny would be the opposite of big?” I told him.

He went on to ask me the opposite of six or seven things and each time I was able to come up with answers quickly.

I was impressed with the number of things he was coming up with. He was using great thinking skills. His wonderfully inherited DNA or exposure to tons of concepts was shining through.

Then he stumped me with one of his opposite questions.

“What is the opposite of tree?” he wanted to know.

I thought and I thought and I thought.

Bushes are low to the ground and trees reach up high but, some trees can be smaller than a bush.

Grass is low to the ground too, but it can grow tall if it isn’t cut often enough.

I couldn’t think of an answer for him. My answer was to say that we would check with the smart moms at playgroup. ( My playgroup is filled with really smart moms that went to really big colleges.)

When I got to playgroup, several of the moms came up with bushes and grass as the opposite of a tree, but they weren’t willing to say it was the right answer or their final answer.

My friend Kathleen suggested I ask you. She claims my readers super smart too and  are probably able to come up with an answer for my son who inspires higher level thinking.

So, what is the opposite of tree?

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

Keeping Hymn from Church

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If you would, try to imagine singing the words to Amazing Grace while trying to hold on to your preschooler who is standing on a pew next to you continually asking you where you are in the song as he sways to the music.

Many of you can imagine this moment and have repeated Sunday after Sunday due to the fact that your church encourages your children to be in the service with you or they don’t offer a Sunday school class that runs during the church service and Sunday school.

The services at my church have children over the age of five sitting with their parents for the first part of the service and then they are walked out to attend children’s church. There are some expectation to that and I want to share an exception with you that has challenged my families’ view on children in church.

The Situation

Sometimes JDaniel is the only child in the three year old class for the first twenty minutes of church. There are two boys that used to be with him and they are now upstairs in the sanctuary with their parents to listen to the prelude music and the opening hymns.

When we became aware of the other families’ decision to do this, we talked over whether we should do the same thing with JDaniel. We came up with a number of cons and pros his being church with us.

Cons

He doesn’t like to sit sill for long periods of time or stand still.

He may not want to leave to go to his Sunday school class. His way of expressing that would be to loudly share his desire to stay in the congregation.

He may decide he wants to talk about a random thought that has occurred to him during the singing to get our attention and distract other people.

He hates for me to leave him in Sunday school in the first place and has to be peeled off me several Sundays in month. We would just be delaying the battle.

Pros

He would be doing what the other boys are doing.

He won’t be walking into an empty room.

He has plans

Our decision was to have him stay in his class and I thought the discussion was over.

JDaniel was found recently flipping through a hymnal we keep in the living room looking over the music. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was learning the music to get ready for the big church. He really seems to want to try being upstairs. Three just seems young to try this experiment in music exploration.

What would you do? (Remember at three JDaniel is unpredictable.)

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

 
 

Pause Life for a Moment- Red Ted Art

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Maggie of Red Ted Art is a amazing blogger. She takes crafts and art with children to a new level. Her posts inspire me to be a more crafty mom. She actually does more than that she write about her children and her life while sharing crafts. She makes you with you could sit down with her and chat about life, children and crafts over a cup of tea.

Pause Life for a Moment

 

Hello. I am Maggy from Red Ted Art, and I am so pleased to be visiting JDaniel4’s Mum’s blog this week.

JDaniel4’s Mum and I met via the lovely  Jenny Matlock’s blog and her alphabet Thursdays meme and I then started linking up to Read.Learn.Explore every Friday. I love reading her blog and it is fabulous to get to write for it.

Pausing Your Life for a Moment

Those who know me know that I NEVER stop. I like being busy and getting stuff done. Throw two small children and a craft blog into the equation and you may have an idea of my busy-ness. When I watch TV, I knit. When I sit in the passenger seat of a car, I read some interview that I have printed out. When I am on the underground, I write to do lists or have a book with me.

Pausing Your Life for a Moment
…
is not something I do very often. And having been asked to write this post has made me think a little about it. I really don’t do it enough. And I know I can never quite “just sit still”.

So here, I pledge some more time to pause – for me – time to pause, means time for reflection:

I pledge to spend more time in the garden.

Spending time in the garden, getting flower beds ready, tidying up the vegetable plants, picking fruit, clearing debris. Looking after what nature is providing. I get to think just about the task at hand, which is wonderfully soothing. Trimming, looking, examing. Or I get to let my mind wander. Think about things I haven’t thought about in a long time. Letting things fall into perspective.

Our garden isn’t very big. But it is big enough to let me (and my children) connect with nature and give a few minutes of reflective respite a day.

I pledge to spend more time sketching.

When I craft, my mind does actually relax too – so although I talked about how “I never stop” and that “knitting” is a good example of this, I also find, that I can switch off whilst I knit or do some other craft. In fact this can be a problem, as I sometimes forget to follow the pattern that way… and just go into auto mode.

But I have just signed up to a Sketchbook challenge – where you receive a small sketch book and you get to draw inside whatever you like. I am really looking forward to this, as it will let me empty my head out onto a page. I am sure some days it will be a challenge and I hoping other days it will just flow. And on the days that it just flows.. I know I will have time to reflect and think about life and my family.

I pledge to go to the playground more often.


The children can play.

I can sit. I can watch. And I can think.

…
for a bit, until they need some help or a push on the swing.

Maybe I will be better at not forgetting everybody’s Birthday this year!

What areas of your life would you like to pledge to work on?

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Yankee Doodle with a Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom Reminder

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Did you know that Yankee Doodle, his girl friend, her poodle, and a few other animals opened up a noodle restaurant called Yankee Doodle’s Noodles? We didn’t either. We found out about it when we read Mary Ann Hoberman and Nadine Bernard Westcott’s book Yankee Doodle.

It is a fun rhyming book that is very loosely based on the patriotic song Yankee Doodle. The story is really silly and filled with humor that made JDaniel laugh.

Today’s muffin tin lunch is loosely based on the book. He had mac and cheese, apple stars, strawberries, cantaloupe on toothpicks, and chocolate dipping sauce with fireworks red sprinkles.

JDaniel hasn’t had a lot of experience with toothpicks. He got a lot of practice with this lunch. He loved dipping the fruit into the chocolate.

Remember: Next week I will be starting the Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom series. It will run through July and August.

How does the Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom work?

You just leave me a comment on a Muffin Tin Monday post  with a link to a recipe you think I should get JDaniel to try a muffin tin. If I use your recipe, I will mention your blog in the post it appears in along with a link back to it.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

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