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+.

Mommyhood Moment-Pushing the Envelope or the Chair

August 11, 2009 By Deirdre

JDaniel is working on keeping his sippy cup in the kitchen and not carrying it around the house. I have taken to putting it on a kitchen chair so that he doesn’t have to bend down to reach it. This is what I found when I turned around after hearing a chair scrapping across the kitchen floor.

Mommyhood Tip- Keeping track of things that need to go up or down

July 23, 2009 By Deirdre

One of the Mentor Moms at church shared this tip with me last winter and it has been a lifesaver. She said to get plastic baskets for your children. Each child gets two baskets of their assigned color. Put one in their room and one on the stairs. All day put the things that need to go downstairs in the basket in their room and things that need to go up in their basket on the stairs. The basket on the stairs goes up at night and its contents are put away. The basket in their room comes down in the morning and things are placed where they belong.

It works well for me. My little one doesn’t need a hamper. I just put his dirty clothes in the basket that will be coming downstairs in the morning, along with some diapers, his shoes, and anything else we need for the day that I don’t want to have to keep going upstairs to get. I put all the little toys he insists on bringing downstairs the basket on the stairs along with small purchases I made that day like diaper cream, and take it up at night.

If you have older children, they can bring the baskets up and down by themselves. My son is 16 months old and can’t do it yet.

Traveling with a Toddler

July 1, 2009 By Deirdre

We are heading to a family reunion and to visit friends ten hours from where we live. JDaniel has never been in the car for more than two and half hours for over a year. Back then he was four months old and slept most of the way. Needless to say I have been trying to plan out what we will need to make the trip successful.

The first thing I did was search the web for advice. I found the following sites helpful:

Baby Center- Packing Checklist for Traveling with Toddlers
Traveling with a Toddler
Toddler Travel

The second thing I did was assess what we already had that could entertain him and what I needed to get to help him stay happy while we traveled..

I have decided to take:

a way to watch the Elemo and Curious George videos I checked out from the library. Thankfully a neighbor lent us their portable DVD player.
a toy laptop that I found at a great consignment shop. (He loves computers.)
puppets
many, many books
an I Spy bag that I got off the internet at Etsy.com
crayons and paper
a magnetic puzzle book
the PeaPodz teether (He likes to play with the peas.)
snacks
an insulated sippy cup
bubbles to blow at rest stops
a ball to play with at rest stops
my digital camera (If all else fails, he loves to view pictures on himself.)

The last thing I did was send out an e-mail asking for people to pray for our car ride. When you are traveling with a toddler, prayers are a good thing.

Thank goodness my mom is going with us. She will be able to rotate in to help entertain Daniel in the backseat. My mom is probably the most important thing we are taking with us.

What are your must haves when traveling with a toddler?