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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+.

Reflecting on My Freshman Year of Blogging

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I have just come to the end of my freshman year of blogging. Much like my freshman year in I learned a lot. There were ups, downs, missteps, and glorious moments. I would like to share with you some of the things I learned this year. They may be things you learned, don’t care about, or are learning along with me.
  1. I started out with a routine of the types of posts I would write each day of the week. That hasn’t changed much. I like the structure of my blog.
  2. Hosting giveaways is a ton of fun and a lot of work. I started them to draw attention to my blog. Posting them many places each week takes at a lot of time. I didn’t intend and still don’t intend to be a giveaway blog per se. I totally admire the blogs that can do it. The number of giveaways and reviews is going to go down a bit. My plan is to add one or two a week.
  3. Finding a niche of friends to visit, comment on, and get to know is really important. I have joined several blogging groups (Mom Blogger’s Club and Secret to Success is Support) and participate in Mom Loop on BlogFrog as one of five moderators.
  4. Memes can be a great way to find new blogs to read, meet friends, and share with others that have similar interests. I am a part of several memes ( Muffin Tin Monday, Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe, Wordless Wednesday, and stART) I don’t do all these memes every week. In the future, I think I will be cutting back to Muffin Tin Monday and Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe. Not just because they comment back and they do with a vengeance. All the memes have people that comment back. I have just found a niche in these two memes.
  5. I have read a million times that it is not about the number of followers, subscribers, or comments. It should be about writing great posts and building friendships. The truth is I can get a thrill out of the numbers. I can also be touched by one comment or e-mail about a post that can be just as thrilling. I am going to continue to comment on tons and be better about enjoying the blogging experience.
  6. You don’t have to have exact goals or fit into a certain blogging mold. Some blogs do and have great success. I have an eclectic mommy blog that is growing and changing as I grow and change. I guess I am like a rising sophomore without a major.

 

Reading About Machines Constructing A B-Day Cake

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JDaniel just loves this book about constructing a birthday cake! Even with a pile of books around him, he wants to read this book over and over again. If you think your children would enjoy this book, you can order a copy of it so that they can read it over and over again just as JDaniel has.

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Great Post I Came Across This Week- July 17

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Each week I travel around the internet visiting blogs. Here are a few posts that I loved, learned from, or gave me great ideas:

 

Mom Related Post

 

Becoming Versed has a great post on potty training called Happy One Year Plus Master J.

 

Fabulous on a Teacher’s Salary has a great Travel Organizer for children. This would be wonderful to have.
Child Related Post

 

Oopsey Daisy has a really fun game called Baby Food Jar Lid Game. I wish I had kept some of the lids from JDaniel’s baby food jars.

 

Attached Mom has a great collection of alphabet crafts in a post called Introducing the Ultimate Craft Collection.

 

Sevin Family has fun photos of one of their children decorating a cake. I think he likes icing.

 

Fowl Single has a great wreath made of cones described in her post-Red, White, Blue, and Tardy. She made it for the 4th of July. I bet you could make it for any holiday.

 

Serving Pink Lemonade has a great post on an Airplane Tray Cover that has really fun activities for kids to do on it.

 

Moore Minutes has an amazing Retro Ice Cream Bar post. I would love to visit her ice cream bar it looks wonderful.

 

 

Thank You!

 

I want to thank Personalized Sketches and Sentiments for giving me the Blogger Buddy Award Below. She is a fellow student in Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Class. I love visiting her site.

 

 

Construction Books and A Crane

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We have read about twenty books on construction equipment. I am only going to highlight three today.

The links below are affiliate links.


Dig by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha is a wonderful book with rhymes about the five jobs Mr. Rally and his dog Lightning do in one day. They did up rock! They did up clay! They dig up dirt! They dig all day.

Dig Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo has a great repetition of words. I loved reading the book to JDaniel.

Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia is another book full of repetitive words. I love that the machines come to do something with the mess they find in a lot. What do they make? They create a nature playground.

We printed out a picture of a crane. JDaniel aggressively colored it with markers. I cut out the outline of the crane so that you could see that it is indeed a crane.

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A Zeal and Zest for Construction Equipment!

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Do you get a thrill when you see a backhoe or dump truck on the road? Does excitement fill you when you notice a cherry picker at work? Up until a few months ago I would have said, “No!” Now that JDaniel is so into them I cheer, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
JDaniel is really into seeing them at work. We are so blessed to live in an area that is growing and has a lot of buildings. Machines seem to be at work everywhere. In downtown Simpsonville, they have been building a sidewalk along Main Street. We cruise Main Street almost every day to see if the cement mixer is downloading cement or if the mini front loader is scooping up dirt. JDaniel is so disappointed if it is close to noon and the machines are parked so that the workers can go to lunch.
A month ago I drove from Simpsonville, S.C to August, GA to see my mother-in-law. JDaniel fell asleep about a fourth of the way into the trip. I was a good mother and didn’t wake him up when I passed a convoy of dump trucks or the school being built by many wonderful machines or the road crew out to repair a section of the road. I let him sleep, but how scary is it that I thought about waking him up.
A few weeks we went to a local park to play and left after a short time. It was too hot. On our way out of the park, we passed construction vehicles working on a project. “Stop Mom!” JDaniel announced loudly from the back seat. I did stop and we watched them work from the parking lot in our air-conditioned car for fifteen minutes.
The names of all the pieces of construction equipment are now cluttering my brain. I don’t know what you are thinking about when you are out driving. Right now I am thinking about what machine we will see next.

 

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The Claw and Mini Claw Live At My House

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I am participating in the SITS Girls Back to Blogging week, and as part of day two I am re-posting something that I wish more people had read.
For many years my husband chased his nieces and nephew around as “The Claw”. He would place one hand around the wrist of the other and making grabbing motions with it as they ran from him with glee. They loved it. When we got married, several of them asked me if I knew about “The Claw”. Yes, I told them I have seen it in action.

A few months ago my husband started chasing JDaniel around the house as “The Claw”. JDaniel loved it. If he felt it was time for “The Claw” and his dad hadn’t started chasing him, JDaniel would get “The Claw” ready by taking one of my husband’s hands and place it on the wrist of the other. He would than run like crazy. Sometimes I join in as “Wife of Claw” or “Mommy Claw”.
Recently “Mini Claw” has been chasing his parents around the house. JDaniel loves getting his hand ready to be “Mini Claw” and chase us around the house. He really enjoys been the chaser who is chopping at his parents from behind.
I do have small problem with “Mini Claw”. He has joined us at the dinner table a few times. “Mini Claw” works like a grappler or front loader to feed JDaniel. The fork and spoon stay neatly beside JDaniel’s plate when “Mini Claw” has arrived for dinner. My husband isn’t bothered by it. He says it is a boy thing.

Muffin Tin Monday- Digging Into a Good Lunch

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The blog theme this week is Construction Equipment. JDaniel loves playing with his construction vehicles and reading about them I thought it would be fun for him to eat like one.

He was given Frito’s Scoops to scoop up his taco salad lunch. He had ground turkey, shredded cheese, blueberries, peas with barley, and tomatoes to scoop up like a front loader. This wasn’t an easy task. After several attempts with the scoops, he went for using an orange peel grappler (his hand bent into a claw) to finish his lunch.

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Yammering and Yowling for Mommy to Yield

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When I was little I talked my mom’s ear off. She was forever letting me know she was busy with something. I don’t know if I talked to get her attention or because I just liked to hear my own voice. Maybe I never learned to process thoughts internally. I remember her saying some of what I was saying wasn’t really important or something she needed to know. There weren’t many quiet moments for her when I was around. I seemed to be yammering about something thought or idea all the time.

JDaniel received his mother’s gift of gab. We are constantly chatting about what he notices in the world. There are many “What’s that” statements said every day. He wakes up talking to himself in his bed. Then we chat about what to thank God for in our morning prayers and what he would like for breakfast. This pattern of chats and questions continues for the rest of the day. Unless he gets busy with “work” or reading. Work is done while chatting to himself and reading in done silently most of the time.

Those times of conversation and language sharing are great! I love them. The ones that drive me nuts are the yammering or whining conversations. They are filled with “I want” and “I need”. Sometimes they are accompanied by a foot stump or two.

Yelping or yammering is also done. I think he does it in an attempt to wear mommy down. If he goes on and on about it in a demanding voice, he thinks he will get what he wants it he sticks with the yelping or yammering long enough. It doesn’t seem to work well for him yet he doesn’t seem interested in giving it up. I try to gently remind him that there are other ways to ask. I try removing myself from the area of the house that contains the object of his desire.

I am starting to understand what my mom lived through. Do you think she prayed I would have a child just like me?



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