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+.

They Make My Heart Melt

January 13, 2011 By Deirdre

The last time my heart melted was because…

I spend all kinds of time with JDaniel due to the fact that we are home together all day. I love to hear and sometimes watch my husband playing and chatting with JDaniel. It just melts my heart.

Sometimes I just listen on the fringes of where they are playing. I am afraid to look in and disturb these wonderful moments. I don’t always hold back. There are times I jump in and join the fun. There are times we all have fun together. More often than not when Daddy Time is happening I hang back a little.

JDaniel loves Daddy Time. He has even told me at times that I have jumped in this is “Daddy Time.” They do almost the same things we do during Mommy Time. They play with trucks; chase each other around the house, read, and play hide and seek. It is just different. The things they talk about are different. The way my husband plays with him is different.

Take for example time outside sledding yesterday in the snow. I started out pulling JDaniel around the snow in a sled I had made out of a cardboard box. We had a blast. JDaniel had never sledded before and thought this was a great way to travel over the icy snow. Then Daddy took over. It may be due to the nine inches my husband has on me in height or the speed with which he could pull the sled across the snow. Sledding became more like hydroplaning across the snow and that looked and sounded like it was so much more fun.

Part of me wanted to jump in or take control of the sled and try to make it hydroplane too. Instead, I stood back and took these pictures of my guys playing with a sled in the snow. Hearing the two of them hooting and hollering across the snow did it to me again. I stood there in the cold icy snow feeling my heart melt.

This post is part of Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop.

Not Good Mom!

January 12, 2011 By Deirdre

When we had snow on Christmas Day, I decided JDaniel would need to have his first snowman. At first, he was interested in helping roll the snow into balls. After a few minutes, he picked up his shovel and moved to a different part of the yard to dig in the snow and do work.

I continued to work on the snowman building a second and third snowball. Each ball was a little smaller so that it could be stacked to create the man of snow.

Once the man was assembled I let JDaniel and my husband know I was going inside to get the materials needed to add a face to the snowman. I knew how large I had made the head and grabbed pickles, olives, and carrots that would fit on his face.

When I returned, the snowman had a fourth snowball added to him right on top of the head I had made. I am guessing my husband added the head although no one stepped forward to claim the tiny ball of snow as their creation.

I tried to make the materials I had brought out work. They just didn’t fit this minuscule head. I grabbed a John Deere hat and JDaniel’s sunglasses out of the garage and tried to make the snowman look better.

I asked JDaniel to come over and check out the snowman. When he did the news was accurate and yet disappointing. “This is not good! Mom! Just not good!” I was told.

There was only one way to fix this problem. The small head had to go and the original head then became the top ball and thus the head. I was then able to place the face materials on the snowman minus the pickles which somehow disappeared along with several teeth. Although no one claims to have eaten them my guess is JDaniel has a snowy snack.

I think this snowman looks much better.

I Don’t Like Singing in the Middle of the Night

January 11, 2011 By Deirdre

My sister Michelle gave JDaniel a stuffed rabbit that had Jesus Loves Me embossed across his chest that had been given to her sons almost a year ago. We hate this rabbit my sister had informed me. She also mentioned that her sons loved to throw it into the bedroom of one another after pushing his chest to activate box that causes the song Jesus Loves Me to reverberate from the bunny’s chest. Yes, my loving sister passed to us an irritating toy.

JDaniel calls the irritating rabbit Jesus Loves Me Bunny. For most of the last year Jesus Love Me Bunny has lived at the bottom of the toy basket in his room. The bunny just didn’t interest him.

Last week about 3: oo a.m. I heard a small voice singing Jesus Loves Me through JDaniel’s baby monitor. At first I thought it was JDaniel singing as I listened more carefully I realized the voice wasn’t his but that of Jesus Loves Me Bunny.

I lay quietly in my bed listening to the bunny singing the complete first the verse of Jesus Love Me and waiting to hear if it had caused JDaniel to wake up. There was complete silence. I breathed a sigh of relief and drifted back to sleep.

Two hours later I heard the song again through the monitor. JDaniel slept through a second round of the song, but I lay there wide awake trying to figure out where this bunny was in JDaniel’s room and what was set off the song.

After much thought and time awake to think thoughts I came up with what I believed to be the reason. I had to wait until JDaniel woke up at 6:00 a.m. to see if the hypothesis I had formed was correct.

Do you know what was going on?

JDaniel had taken Jesus Loves Me Bunny and added him to the menagerie of animals that sleep in his bed with him. During the night he had rolled over the bunny in just the right spot to activate the song twice.

Guess where Jesus Loves Me Bunny sleeps now!

He sleeps in the bottom of JDaniel’s toy basket. It seemed like the best place for him to be.

I love singing Jesus Loves Me, but I don’t like hearing it in the middle of the night.

Muffin Tin Monday- Owl Moon Lunch

January 10, 2011 By Deirdre

Owl Moon is one of my favorite wintertime tales. Jane Yolen does a wonderful job involving the reader into a hunt for owls one cold winter night. The pictures by John Schoenherr draw you in and make you want to go on your own owl hunt. JDaniel is now dying to search the backyard in the dark to look for owls.

I decided to create an Owl Moon muffin tin meal for JDaniel and see if he could find the images I was trying to represent in the book while we ate.

There was a cheese moon, yogurt with tiny spoon like footprints, a turkey dog, Christmas fruitcake with the darkest shadows you have ever seen, milk representing snow whiter that milk from a cereal bowl, and finally a sandwich owl. Most of the food was served in silver icicle like muffin cups.

Here is a better shot of the footprints.

He did a pretty good job of finding things mostly though he just wants to go owling. It is snowing here is South Carolina today. We may have to go out at dust, trample through the snow and look for owls.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

Every week for about nine months I have written a post for Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday. There are about seventy bloggers a week that join Jenny Matlock in sharing ideas, thoughts, reflection and more that begin with a particular letter of the alphabet.

Reading each of the posts along with the comments Mrs. Matlock leaves for all of her students or meme followers is a highlight of my week. (Yes, she visits every person every week and leaves amazing comments. She sends e-mails to her students if she has a chance too.)

During L week Mrs. Matlock’s post was called L is for Lemon. In her post, she mentioned she was going to give away boxes of lemons and peppermints. It sounded like she had a multitude of lemons growing in her yard. We love fresh fruit and peppermints at your house so; I left a comment stating that we would love to win a box.

Much to my surprise, we were picked by Mrs. Matlock to receive one of her special boxes. The box arrived two days before Christmas. We loved the luscious lemon scent of the box. I wonder if the mail carrier kept it in the front of her truck just to smell the lemon scent as she made her deliveries.

We had guests over for dinner that night and I cut lemon slices for us to have in our sodas and iced teas. They were as impressed as we were that this wonderful box filled with candies and lemons with leaves still attached had been sent across the country to us.

I loved having the Larsons for dinner, but I could hardly wait to begin looking through my cookbooks for a recipe for a lemon pie to make for the holidays. The first book I pulled out was The Taste of Home Cookbook my husband had given me several years ago. It was within its pages that I found a two page spread dedicated to lemon pies.

I settled on one that was label light and easy. With all the sweets we have during and before the holidays light was definitely needed. I am all for easy recipes that are guaranteed to come together.

The pie turned out so well. JDaniel and I were able to work together to squeeze the lemons and mix the ingredients. He did have to be distracted to keep him from drinking the lemon juice right from the measuring cup right after squeezing it. Mrs. Matlock’s peppermints were the perfect answer.

I could tell by the way JDaniel enthusiastically licked the bowl clean that it was going to taste good. Actually I knew it was going to taste good too. My fingers were dipping into the remnants left in the bowl as fast as his were.
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