JDaniel and I set out to rake the leaves in front of our house yesterday. We both rakes in handmade our way from the shed in the back of the house to the leaves scattered everywhere in the front. He was excited about helping mom do a big person’s job.

At first, we did rake the leaves. I raked them into piles and he raked them out of piles. Next, he moved to pick up leaves and dropping them over the curb into the street. He had seen me rake some leaves into the street for the county maintenance department to pick up on Monday. It was a tough task for him. He had to gather leaves, carry them to the curb, squat down and place them on the street. All without falling face first into the street.

After doing that for about ten minutes, he moved to analyze leaves. JDaniel sat beside a leaf pile and looked at the leaves one at a time. He chatted to himself with words only he understood about leaves.

Each leaf was turned carefully in his hand to view it from many angles. He smoothed some out and crinkled others. Finally, I put down my rake and joined him. We chatted about the color of various leaves and the noises I had heard them make. Then we just sat and looked at them together.

JDaniel reminds me every day of the beauty of small things and small moments. He loved helping me rake leaves. He found joy in knowing where the leaves needed to go. He found pleasure in sitting and looking at the leaves and how each was made.

I have tried to use the racecar grocery cart. It is the most unyielding thing to try to push down the aisle of a store. JDaniel was placed in one at Home Depot once and ever since then he has pointed to them frantically as we enter the grocery store. They are always right inside the door. It is like they are waiting for him. I have tried to explain to him that you can’t have a petite mommy that is not muscle bound and ride in the cart with the car. Only big moms can use those carts. So far he is buying it. The day is coming when he is going to notice that there are little moms pushing those horrible carts that don’t turn in aisles. I hope it doesn’t happen soon.

I have been trimming JDaniel’s hair for months. I just cut his curls off the collar of his pajamas, his bangs and the little wisps of hair that hang over his ears after he has a bath. Today I decided to take him for his first haircut to a hair salon for kids. They advertise that the first haircut is only one penny. He loved waiting for his turn while sitting in a motorcycle chair and looking around at the toys in the waiting area. When it was his turn, I was asked if a pair of scissors had ever touched his head. Yes, I admitted. He has had a trim now and then but, he has never had a haircut. Well, then he isn’t eligible for the 1 cent cut. His haircut will be seventeen dollars I was told. I am a cheap as they come as you will read in the next paragraph, but I did splurge. JDaniel had his hair cut in the racecar chair where he could watch a movie on a monitor. He was so good about the whole thing. That is until the stylist took out the trimmer to go around his ears. The sound really bothered him. JDaniel is going to be going to a family wedding in two weeks and now he looks amazingly cute.

The second hair cut is the frugal one. It isn’t as frugal as it could have been. On the way back from JDaniel’s haircut I saw a sign in front of the vocational high school in town. The sign advertised haircuts for four dollars. I have to admit I seriously thought about it. I just need to have my hair trimmed about an inch. Instead I went and paid eight dollars and fifty cents to a local hairstyling franchise in town. Their haircuts are usually I little more than that, but I had a coupon on the back of my Bi-Lo grocery store receipt for a discounted haircut. Honestly I don’t look nearly as amazingly cute as JDaniel, but it was the right price for what I had done.

JDaniel is a digital native. He loves computers. It maybe because he sees his parent working on their computers. My husband and I are both geeks. He has a laptop of his own but can’t wait to get on his parents or the computers in the children’s section at the library. On Wednesday he sat at the library clicking away at the key with fingers on both hands flying. He was typing just like his mom. I better watch out he may start his own blog.

Have you ever heard this while traveling in the car with your children? Have you ever heard yourself saying it? Yesterday on my way home from visiting my sister about a half a hour from home I found myself saying this. I said it in my head and began to pray. I prayed that my nineteen month old would wake up from his two hour nap so that I would be able to exit off the highway and go to the bathroom. I couldn’t stop and leave him in the car. I prayed that when he did wake up there would be an exit. There are long stretches on my way home without exits. I prayed that the exit would have a place with a clean bathroom. I prayed that I would stop thinking about going to the bathroom. I prayed that I would have the wisdom to never get a 32 ounce sweet tea while traveling along again. (Even if it is only $1.)

God is good. JDaniel woke up about ten minutes later and we were able to stop at a fast food restaurant. I wish could say it was a clean bathroom. I quickly picked the stall with the least amount of toilet paper on the floor, placed JDaniel in a clean corner of the stall and praised God for giving JDaniel a good rest and me a good rest stop. (Even with the toilet paper on the floor)

JDaniel has decided that he is ready to feed himself oatmeal in the morning. He tries to use a spoon to eat and when he gets tired or frustrated with it he moves to his hands. I am pretty sure oatmeal shouldn’t be eaten with your hands. By the time he has finished eating he has oatmeal hanging from his chin, on the tip of his nose, up and down his sleeves, all over the highchair, on the floor, and somehow on back on his pajamas ( I don’t know how it get on his bottom.) I literally strip him down to his diaper in the kitchen so that oatmeal doesn’t fall off of him as he leaves the kitchen. Self-feeding is a great developmental step. I just don’t know why it has to redecorate my kitchen.

JDaniel is at the age when he knows what he should do and what he shouldn’t. He isn’t allowed into the street without holding an adult’s hands. So, he goes to the end of the driveway and hangs his toes off the driveway and into the street. You probably have seen your children do similar things. He glances to the side, he looks quickly to the right and to the left, and there is a deadening silence. These are all telltale signs that something is up at my house. I know of have years of “time outs” coming to both JDaniel and I. His will be time to reflect on his actions and mine will be whether this is the right battle to choose.

We took JDaniel to a Touch-A-Truck event in Greenville on Saturday. It was cold and blustery. None of us was dressed in warm enough clothes. We went through and sat JDaniel on each truck, bus, and backhoe. He tried to steer each piece of equipment and loved each minute of it. I had packed a picnic lunch that we ended up eating in the car due to the weather. JDaniel inhaled everything. He was promised that when we finished we could revisit some of the equipment. As soon as we finished lunch, we added layers to his clothing with some things I had in the trunk of the car and headed back to the displays. I thought he would head to the fire truck, but he headed right to the city bus. It had a little computer next to the steering wheel that he clicked happily on. He could have spent the rest of the day on the bus.

It was great to see his eyes light up as he experienced each new piece of equipment. Actually it is great to see anything that lights up JDaniel’s eyes. Most of them are things I have seen for a thousand times. Now that I get to experience them with my son it makes them seem new for me too.

On Saturday night JDaniel walked across the lawn with the measuring tape and headed to the shed. Once he got there he bent over and dragged the tape across the doorway. My husband noticed what he was doing and commented that he had just done the same thing that morning.

JDaniel is demonstrating to us in big and small ways that he watches our actions very closely. It is a reminder that I need to be on my toes. He will repeat the things I want him to do like measuring, raking the yard, putting toys away, and making the horse in his Fisher-Price barn gallop. He will also repeat things that I don’t want him to do to like throwing the toys into the toy bag at the end of the day and throwing junk mail in the trash. Throwing junk mail is fine. He just runs out of it quickly and tries to find other things to throw away.

I was fortunate to get to spend the weekend with my in-laws this past weekend. Last night at dinner everyone reached out to hold hands to say grace even JDaniel. He has never done that before. He has seen us pray before meals all his life and usually chooses to fuss during grace. Last night he put one hand in mine and one in his grandfathers. It was something I will always remember.