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 Did Not Kill A Leprechaun!

March 17, 2011 By Deirdre

When JDaniel and I were heading home from playgroup on Monday, I realized the road I thought would take me home was in fact taking me further away from home. I don’t usually spend a lot of time in that part of town and really haven’t learned how to get around there yet.

As soon as I realized we were going the wrong way, I looked for a place to turn around. The best place to turn around looked like it would be at the next traffic light. The traffic was heavy and it was going to be hard to get my car heading the right direction without a light.

Right beside the light on the left hand side of the road was empty parking lot. It looked as if a fast food restaurant and once lived on part of the cement pad but, it had long ago been removed. The lot looked perfect for my turn around.

I made my left turn once the light turned green and then made a quick left into the parking lot. As my car entered the lot I heard a huge thud! The entrance into the lot looked like it was clear from the road but, I had obviously gone over something.

“What was that?” JDaniel wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe mommy ran over something. I didn’t see anything though.”

“Maybe you ran over a little man,” JDaniel said matter-a-factly.

“No, I really don’t think it was a little man,” I answered.

“Did he have a wrench? Maybe he was working on the parking lot.” JDaniel surmised. Daydreaming possibilities of what might have made the loud sound.

“I really don’t think it was a little man at all,” I announced.

“Did he bring a horse with him? Is the horse hurt too?” he wanted to know.

“No, I don’t think there was a horse or a man,” I said a little more strongly.

“Where do you think his car is? JDaniel wanted to know.

Possibilities as to what had made that sound filled the car the whole ride home. There were dozens things the little man had been doing and had brought with him to work on the parking lot.

Finally as we approached our driveway, JDaniel stopped sharing ideas and announced, “Mom, I really don’t think you killed a leprechaun. I think he is probably okay.”

I am so glad! I would hate to injure anyone with my car ever but, to hurt a leprechaun on St.Patrick’s Day would be terrible.

Disclaimer: This post is linked to Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop. The prompt is daydreams. The story is almost one hundred perfect true. I don’t remember all the things JDaniel said due to the fact that I was trying to drive home and listen at the same time.

Pause Life for a Moment: Ostriches Look Funny

March 15, 2011 By Deirdre

There are times when you come across a blog and you think that this blogger has read your mind. Not only have they read your mind but, they have written down what you have been thinking about better than you could have expressed it yourself in writing. Ostriches Look Funny is that kind of blog for me. I love her writing style, her photo choices, and her love for God.

The posts on Ostriches Look Funny are funny challenge me to a better mom, make me laugh and or cry, and lead me to pray all at the same time.

Below you will find Ostriches Look Funny’s take on the phrase Pause Life for Moment. If you like it and I know you will, please stop by her blog and read some of the other wonderful posts she has created.

It was a day when the sun and the wind get together to blow kisses on your arms and everything feels perfect and looks green. I herd my children down a dirt path, away from church and bible study, away from the bathroom that my pregnant body suddenly needs, and I march forward with a secret goal to get home and eat a peanut butter sandwich before one o’ clock.

I pause and glance behind my shoulder, and my ducklings are not following me. They both had stopped, squatted down like children do, staring intently at foxtails and nondescript wildflowers.

“Look! MOM! Look! Look at this purple flower! Can I take this stick to the car?” my three-year-old queries.
My bladder grumbles and I sigh and say, “No! I don’t have time for this.”

And as soon as the words leave my mouth, my heart asks the question, “If you don’t have time for THIS, what do you have time FOR?”
If I don’t have time for stopping to look at the green and whispery foxtails, if I don’t have time for examining minuscule purple wildflowers, if I don’t have time to watch my little boy’s golden baby curls wave in the breeze, what am I here for?

Time is a gift, and no one is guaranteed a particular amount.

It is a gift, given for a brief period and then, vapor-like, it runs out. My sons are growing by inches and miles, my wrinkles are multiplying in the night. Right now I am in a beautiful season, my children are small and Spring has made everything pink and green. But, they haven’t found a cure for cancer or car accidents. People die, and children suffer, and waves wash over entire cities. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I am only guaranteed this breath, this beat, this miraculous moment.

What is my moment for then?

The answer is different each time I ask. There is a time for everything; a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to look at wildflowers in the sun, and a time to rush home to use the bathroom…but I don’t have time to be impatient with my children. I don’t t have time to be selfish, or quarrelsome, or bitter, or faithless. The great gift is not for such things, such things waste a life.

It’s hard for me to live in the moment when my house is a bomb, which it usually is. I feel tinges of guilt when I start a project only to lay it down for twenty minutes to address a paper airplane emergency. There have been days where the dishwasher has remained halfway unloaded for four hours straight (I think maybe my son has Dishwasher Radar, and if he sees me walking towards it he goes into Mommy Emergency Hug and Kisses Me Mode…but that’s just a conspiracy theory) and it makes me a little crazy. The point is, in order for me to savor each minute, some things aren’t finished when I want them to be.

I can look at my house and spiral into a depression over the lint and dust and crumbs that have taken over while I was on a walk with my kids…or I can remember that it is good to rest from my works. Following Jesus is about freedom, even freedom from housework. As crazy as it makes me, I give my half washed dishes to God and ask him to sort out my time for me.

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from His.” – Hebrews 4:9-10
I pause my life by changing my perspective, by savoring the moment, by noticing the foxtails and the baby curls. I pause my life by remembering the Lord is the one who makes me holy; not my broom, and not my mop, and not my schedule. So, rest friends. God will take care of you.

Muffin Tin Monday- Saint Patrick Needs Fruit

March 14, 2011 By Deirdre

Saint Patrick is weary from chasing all those snakes out of Ireland. His eyes are bulging from lack of sleep. His hair is need of a red dye job. It has gone turkey colored beige due to the snake removal stress. Pat’s lips are chapped from having to outside in the chilly night air searching under rocks for the slithery animals Ireland no longer wants.

What Saint Patrick needs are a great fruit salad and a wonderful night’s sleep!

JDaniel really wanted a turkey sandwich to go with his fruit salad in his muffin tin. Turkey doesn’t make the most attractive hair, but St. Patrick and JDaniel both got turkey anyway.

Saint Patrick also got a reward for the hard work he did in the form of Sweet Hearts. JDaniel gets them for peeing in the potty and Patrick got them for snake removal.

Read.Explore.Learn.-Animal Alphabet Books

March 11, 2011 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-in to 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 that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment and Stumble your post.

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

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

This week my blog posts have been all over the place. I usually try to pick books for Read.Explore.Learn that fit the weekly theme. This week’s books are just plain fun. They are all written by Giles Andreae and illustrated by David Wojtowycz. JDaniel loves the bright colors of the illustration and the funky starfish that appear in one of the books.

ABC Animals Jamboree is a great alphabet book with wonderful rhymes about each featured animal. JDaniel loves the jellyfish. The jelly fish’s eyes and smile make him laugh. The jiggling the jellyfish likes to do it something he also finds fun.

The rhymes are fun and entertaining for both of us. It is fun to read about each of the animals. Some of the rhymes are told from the animals’ perspective. We really enjoyed these.

Commotion in the Ocean and Rumble in the Jungle is much like ABC Animals Jamboree. They do in fact contain some of the same rhymes. It was fun to read them with JDaniel and see if he recognized them. Both books contain a lot of new animals along with the old ones.

The copies of these books I received were board books. JDaniel loves to read them over and over again. I am so glad they are well made. JDaniel received a book about fire trucks from my mother-in-law for his birthday and the binding has already been broken. These look like they will last.

Rumble in the Jungle is filled with animals JDaniel is familiar with. We learned a few new facts about each and loved the text layout. It changes from animal to animal.

The Commotion in the Ocean features the starfish JDaniel loves. He learned a lot about ocean animals while searching for starfish. He is very concerned about it hanging out near the shark’s mouth and in the Arctic where it is so cold.

What we did with the books:

Cooking

We had to make jello after reading about the jellyfish. JDaniel really wanted to make something that would jiggle. He loved stirring the liquid jello in ice cubes to cool it down.

Craft

There is a picture of the underwater animals in the darkness in Commotion in the Ocean JDanel loves. We took out I-Pad I won from The Activity Mom and drew dish on a black background using a program called Doodle Buddy. JDaniel loves the program and it is free from the iTunes Shop.

Disclaimer: I was sent all the books listed above to review by Tiger Tales Books. I was not compensated for mentioning Doodle Buddy.

Very Valued Neighbor Takes The Cake

March 9, 2011 By Deirdre

Last Saturday was JDaniel’s third birthday. I asked him what he wanted to do for the day. Did he want to go to the children’s museum or a bouncy place? Was the library where he wanted to go? He announced he wanted to stay home and have the little boy next door come to play.

I got on the phone and called next door to see if Bryce was available to play. Bryce was more than available his mom told me. She would slip his shoes on and send him across the driveway as soon as she hung up the phone.

No sooner had I told JDaniel that Bryce was coming over than the doorbell rang. Both boys were running around the living room before I could close the front door.

They had the best time exploring all the birthday toys JDaniel had received. They laughed and talked silly baby talk like Ming Ming from the Wonder Pets in JDaniel’s new indoor tent. We played a Curious George Memory game and a fishing game together. The two boys had a wonderful morning pretending to drive construction vehicles all over JDaniel’s room.

Right before lunch time I announced that Bryce was going to have to go home for lunch. He is a super picky eater and doesn’t like anything I have at my house to eat. “Well, I could just eat chocolate cake for lunch,” he informed me. Bryce had been at JDaniel’s birthday party on Friday morning and had eaten only chocolate birthday cake for lunch.

I informed him that chocolate cake would make a good snack after JDaniel took a nap. He quickly asked if he could come back for that. “That would be fine,” I told him.

Bryce headed home after I called his mom and told her that he was heading back across the driveway to wait for JDaniel’s nap to end.

At about four o’clock I got a phone call from Bryce’s dad. “You won’t believe this,” he said, “Bryce took a nap today right after lunch. (Bryce usually refuses naps.) He says that earns him chocolate cake at your house. Is that true?”

“It sure does!” I informed him. “JDaniel is just waking up from his nap and he wants cake too. I would love serve them both cake,” I replied.

We are so blessed to have Bryce right across the driveway. He and JDaniel have the best time playing together and eating chocolate cake.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday and The Writing Workshop.

Why I Should Win The Type A Celebrity Contest!

March 9, 2011 By Deirdre

I decided that I would love to attend the Type A Conference in Asheville again this year. Last year I convinced my husband the Type A Conference was a couples getaway weekend where we will spend a weekend living like celebrities. We would get stay in a luxury hotel with cable television. We don’t have cable at our house. We would get to sleep in past a six a.m. call inquiring whether it was morning. In fact one of us could sleep all day if he liked without any interruptions just like a star. There would be meals consumed without a small wandering hand trying to retrieve the last piece of food on our plates. A world class nanny would watch our angel and keep him entertained. My sister came with her two sons from Atlanta to watch him.

I didn’t want to pay for the conference again if I could find another way. The other way arrived a few weeks ago via e-mail. The e-mail invited me to apply for the Type A Celebrity Contest. The e-mail warned that I would have to work hard to win this celebrity challenge. Every up and coming star has to work hard to arrive at their pinnacle of success. I was going to need to work hard to reach the foot of the Appalachians in Asheville.

The first task is to convince masses that I am celebrity material. I am really not sure that I can do that. Celebrities always seem to have sleek new cars and my car is seven years old. Celebrities seem to get manicures and pedicures. The last time my fingers received even a coat of nail polish on them was before JDaniel was born. Celebrities seem to stay ahead of the fashion trends. I got stuck in the preppy trend of the early eighties and never left there. Celebrities jet off to fantastic exotic islands in the Pacific to get a break from the world on small private planes. I did jet off to Paducah, Kentucky in a small prop plane to do technology trainings once. The Drury Inn in Paducah did have great hot chocolate that I consumed while relaxing in a recliner in my hotel room after a meal from the Jimmy Dean restaurant next door but, I am not sure it is the same.

The second part of the first task is to convince you I am most like a certain celebrity. I sat beside for a long time and tried to think of a celebrity that had a lifestyle that mirrored mine and I couldn’t think of one. I am sure there are some out there. The only celebrities I have even heard of recently were on the covers of the gossip magazines at the grocery store. My life doesn’t seem to mirror theirs so, I guess I am going to have to hope the 32 other contestants don’t have brilliant answers for the second part of this task.

The third part of the first task is to tell you what I would do if I were a celebrity for a day. The answer is super simple. I would want to be able to sleep in without an early morning wake up call. I would want to eat food I didn’t have to prepare and that is slyly removed from my plate by a toddler hand. I would receive a swag bag filled with marvelous treats that would make me feel special. Oh! I would go on a mountain retreat to hang out with blogging world celebrities that would be totally paid for.

I know this post doesn’t prove that I am meant to win this contest. I hope that it proves that I am stay at blogging mom that would love a pampered weekend away from home. While I believe that every blogging mom needs a pampered weekend away to learn amongst the stars, I hope I will get to be the one.

Don’t you think I should win?

Pause Life For A Moment- My Take

March 8, 2011 By Deirdre

Have you ever had a moment when you wanted to pause life for a moment and rethink your response to an event or a person? Has life ever caused you pause due to illness or traffic or a family situation? Have you ever paused your life to step out of the hustle and bustle to pray or meditate or just rest?

I will be hosting a wonderful series of guest posts about Pausing Life for a Moment. Each guest poster will have their own take on what that phrase means to them. I am so excited that they will be sharing their thoughts and lives with you. Each has had an impact on this blog in one way or another. I will be sharing a little bit about how they have changed my life and the life of the blog above their posts each week.

Before they share their thoughts, I thought I would start the series off with mine.

Last week was my turn to host playgroup. I haven’t hosted in several months. There are eleven moms in playgroup now. It is usually several months until there is a need to volunteer your house for a group time.

Each week we RSVP on a discussion board as to whether we will be able to make playgroup that week. It can really vary from week to week as to how many moms and toddlers you have at your house.

On Sunday night I checked to see how many people had RSVPed that they were planning to come to playgroup. Seven moms had indicated that they were coming and three hadn’t decided whether they were coming or not. Monday morning at eight o’clock the same numbers appeared on the discussion board.

I started to panic about the amount of food I had prepared for the moms. Each week the host provides a snack for the moms. The children all bring a bag lunch filled with foods their moms know they will eat. I had a pot of vegetarian chili simmering and had planned to make cornbread. This just didn’t see like enough for 7-10 moms.

I quickly vacuumed the living room floor one last time and fled to the grocery store down the street. Literally it took me five minutes to get there from my house. JDaniel was happy to jump in the car and go to the store. He loves the free cookies they give away in the bakery.

Once the cookie had been obtained, I quickly grabbed a package of slice and bake cookies, some raw veggies, a container of dip, and two bags of tortilla chips. I was in and out of the store in less than fifteen minutes.

When I got home, I still had thirty minutes before the moms could start arriving. Moms of toddlers or the moms of toddlers in our group tend to be at least twenty minutes late.

I glanced at the answering machine as I dumped the tortilla chips in a bowl. It showed that there was a new message that had been left. After throwing the empty chip bag in the trash, I pushed the listen button on the machine. It was a message from one of the moms. “Some of us have decided to go to a park today. It really looks like it is going to be pretty. If no one shows up at your house and you want to meet us that would be great.”

I hit the button again and relistened to the message. It didn’t seem to make sense. Why were people going to a park instead of coming to my house? I checked the discussion board for the playgroup again to see if it held any answers to my question. There wasn’t an answer. There was just clarification as to how many moms I now had coming to my house. The number of moms now RSVPing yes was five. There was also the invite for all the moms to meet at the park as an alternative.

At first I was livid! Why had I just rushed off to the store? If I had stayed home and received the phone call I would have know I had more than enough for the moms coming.

When the other moms started to arrive, they questioned what was happening to. Why were they being asked to choose where to spend their morning instead of just going to playgroup at one location?

As we started to play upstairs in JDaniel’s room and try to give all our children lunch at the same time, my house suddenly felt a little crowded. What would I have done with all those moms and five other children?

I stopped and paused life for moment. I looked at situation unfolding in my house. The decision made by some of the moms to go to the park had been a blessing. God had sent the right number of moms and children to my house. I needed set my ego aside and realize this wasn’t about me. It was about moms getting to break cornbread together and watch our children learn to play together. It was about getting to enjoy each of the moms that had come and get to interact with each child. I never would have been able to do that with thirteen more people at my house.

I didn’t write this post to have any of you comment that the park initiating mom was horribly insensitive. This isn’t a poor JDaniel4’s Mom post. This isn’t a post written have you think I am now mad at these moms for choosing to be somewhere else. I am not mad instead I am grateful. This is post written to share with you what I learned when I paused life for a moment and looked at it through His eyes.

I like His view much better.

Muffin Tin Monday- Construction Equipment After Party Snack

March 7, 2011 By Deirdre

JDaniel had his birthday party on Friday. He chose a construction machine theme. It was a lot of fun to put it together. All his pals were given construction hats to wear while they played. JDaniel received a construction hat with light from my husband and I to wear in the salt mine he created upstairs. I bet you can guess which hat everyone wanted to wear.

When you have a construction machine themed party, you have to have a construction site cake. Tammy of Tammy’s Two Cents came up with the idea for this cake. We were e-mail chatting a few weeks ago about her son’s birthday and I shared with her JDaniel’s birthday theme. Literally she walked me through how to create the cake. It is just a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Crushed Oreos were placed on the cake along with three construction vehicles. Traffic cone candy corns edge the sides of the cake. It was the hit of the party.

JDaniel was so wound up after the party. He really didn’t want to take a nap. I promised that if he took a nap of any length he could have a construction machine muffin tin snack. It took about thirty minutes for him to fall asleep, but he eventually did.

The top row of the muffin tin was inhaled quickly and the second row was dismissed. I don’t blame him. The health things are in the second row and the fun foods we don’t have often are in the top row.

The tortilla chips, candy corn, and Oreos disappeared faster than you can say front end loader. The salsa was deemed too spicy. The cucumbers and carrots were left without mention and teeth marks.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Mom.

Glow Crazy Distance Doodler Winner

March 5, 2011 By Deirdre

Taj and Amy won the Glow Crazy Distance Doodler. I have contacted them via e-mail.

Enjoying The Box While Waiting For The Table

March 5, 2011 By Deirdre

JDaniel received a water table in the mail from my mom for his birthday. He was so excited when UPS delivered it that he danced in the hall and shouted, “It’s here! It’s here!”

It took a few days for my husband to have the time to put the table together.

He has been working long hours.