What My Child Is Reading This Week-Ocean Theme

We are still in the midst of our Ocean theme so the books R and I are reading reflect that. This week we are reading Rub-a-Dub-Sub which is R's favorite. It has rhyming words, repetition, and cartoon type characters and follows a little boy's imaginary journey. We are also "reading" Wave by Suzy Lee. This is a picture book only with simple charcoal drawings depicting a little girl's encounter with the waves and seagulls. I think this would be a great book to add to our library and maybe have R narrate a story for the pictures, possibly coming back in a year and doing the same. The other two we are reading are One Lonely Seahorse and In one tidepool : crabs, snails, and salty tails. In One Lonely Seahorse, all the pictures of sea creatures are made of food, mushroom crabs, ginger lobsters, banana dolphins, and bean eels, R was a bit confused by the pictures but I thought it was cute. I liked the repetition and rhythym of In One Tidepool and R did too.

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I am sold on this theme or unit idea!! It provides me with the structure I need for arts and crafts type activities, books to read, and counting. I can definitely see me using a theme or unit approach to homeschooling. I

Cute stuff I know I'm going to miss

Little R does and says so much cute stuff I know I'm going to miss when she gets older. That is, in between being a little terror  
Some of my favorites:
I want to hold it "just a little second" 
Mommy "take me a bath"
The way she says "girl", can't describe it phonetically but trust me, it's adorable
The way she sometimes leaves off the first syllables of words- member for remember, Cole for Nichole, mercial for commercial
How she runs around after a bath saying "look at my naked hiney"
The random things she focuses on-one day it's a plastic magnifying glass, the next a rubber band ball, the next her Gumby and Pokey
How she sings me a song when I'm sad
Her infatuation with garbage trucks and lizards
How she dances with such energy
And so much more.
My little R will be 3 next month. It doesn't seem possible my baby could already be that old.

More ocean theme activities

R and I have been doing a few projects relating to our ocean theme the past few days. We made a collage of ocean/beach themed pictures on painted posterboard. R painted and glued on pictures I cut out of magazines. We also made a collage of foam fish, crabs and whales(leftover from her 1st b-day party), seashells, and rolled up tissue papers and streamers for seaweed. R once again painted the paper, stuck on the stickers, seashells, and tissue paper. I put the glue down for her but she was definitely not happy about it. :) I got the idea for the mixed media collage (sound so fancy that way) from this blog-http://thelittletreasures.blogspot.com/2010/06/under-sea.html
We also assembled a crab from foam. Don't remember where I found the template but I traced it on to red foam, cut it out and let R put the pieces together and add wiggly eyes.
I like using a theme-it gives me the direction and at least a little bit of organization I need. Pictures coming soon.

Trip to Library and What my child is reading this week

Saturday was one of those hot, humid, miserable days so R and I went to the library. I decided to go ahead and take a stab at a theme for the next few weeks with our books and projects. I chose an ocean/beach theme since it is super easy to access hands on experiences with that here.
I checked out quite a few books while R played with Leggos and puzzles. This was the best she has acted in the library EVER. I was super impressed. Yay!!
On the way back to the car, R noticed a few baby toads. We stopped to look at them and of course she wanted to take one home. I compromised and walked to the retaining pond with her instead. OMG!!! There were hundreds of tiny little toads everywhere, some still with tails. There were a few tadpoles but it looked like most had already passed that stage.
Back to books, we are reading Sam at the Seaside, Abigail the Happy Whale, Scuba Bunnies and Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef this week. Over in the Ocean is my favorite. The artwork is amazing-all the pictures are of polymer clay and it combines our theme with counting and music. I looked the book up on Amazon and noticed there are more in the series Over in the Jungle and Over in the Arctic. These will be must reads for us too.

Really? You actually expect me to believe that??

Honesty and believability seem to be in short supply in my realm of clients lately. I currently work as a substance abuse counselor for a non-profit agency. The majority of my clients are court ordered (dependency, some criminal, some both) and a few are voluntary but encouraged to attend by DCF.

Some of the reasons I have heard for testing positive for various drugs
-I thought it was a tylenol
-The person I had/have sex with uses
-Rode in the car with someone who was using
-Brownies :)
-Drank coffee made with filter used for drug manufacturing (unknowingly of course)
-Thought it was just a rolled cigarette
-Cleaning the dresser, counter, etc in a hotel room that had a white powder on it
-Someone put it in my chapstick
-Oral sex
-Person conducting drug test put drug into urine
-Ate poppy seed muffins, buns
-Hemp Lotion
-Found a baggie with white powder in it and decided to taste it

Reasons for testing positive for alcohol
-I use a lot of hand sanitizer
-cough syrup
-ate something with wine/sherry in it
-had candy with liquer in it
-ate rum cake
-didn't know the energy drink had alcohol in it

FYI- laboratory alcohol tests have thresholds that allow for incidental alcohol ingestion

Explanation for drug charges
-My friend threw it in my purse
-I didn't know the 50 boxes of cold medicine were for making meth
-I grew it for a dealer friend, since I had a green house and he didn't
-They left all the manufacturing materials at my house when I wan't there
-Someone put it in my glove box
-I was keeping it for someone else
-A relative left the medication at my house because she is in the process of moving (in a ziploc)
-I rented a car that had drugs in it

One of the oddest stories I've heard
- I got burned when I knocked on a friend's door, he answered and immediately tossed a bottle of "shake and bake" at me and I missed 

Just thought I would share a little of what I hear on a daily basis. Sometimes it takes all I can manage to keep a straight face.

Thrift store finds

The hubby, R and I went to the Thrift Store in Tuscaloosa while we were visiting my Dad for Father's Day. This store is huge and I could spend hours in there if I had the time. I found a Disney matching game in almost new condition that will be used with little R. I got 2 plates and 2 saucers to use for a tiered tray, maybe 2 trays actually. I also got 3 like new puzzles for R-1 for now and 2 that are a little advanced for her now. Plus, I found a skirt for me that is very bohemian, love it :)
The rest of our weekend was rather uneventful. I cleaned Mom and Dad's house a little, packed up some mementoes for my nieces and brother, and organized a few things. I did talk to my Dad about moving here with me, permanently or even temporarily, he made it clear he doesn't want to. On one hand I understand not wanting to move away from the town you are used to but on the other, I think, why wouldn't you rather be with family versus staying in a tiny room surrounded by strangers. I must admit, my feelings are hurt. I have so many questions I want to ask but don't. I just tell myself to love my Dad as much as I can and move on.
On Father's Day, my brother and his girlfriend came down and we all ate lunch together with my Dad. We just sat and visited with each other versus doing anything or going anywhere. It was nice to see family without the rush of going out to lunch and fighting the crowds.
Hope everyone had a good Father's Day.

Almost summer cleaning and Still on this journey called grief

The hubby is on a cleaning mission. We he have has decided it is past time to start keeping out house cleaner and neater. I am a bit of a pack rat, I come by it honestly though (read some old posts about my parent's home). I keep stuff, LOTS of stuff. I collect stuff, not alot of it but enough. I am also unorganized. I like junk drawers. Junk drawers are my easy way out when cleaning umm, stashing the clutter. The husband used to be a really neat and orderly guy, he says he gave up on it because of me. I say it's because he got lazy :) Either way, our house is a bit of a mess and we are not setting a good example for little R. So, our mission for the next few weeks is purging some of the clutter, organizing what we have, dusting LOTS of stuff and spending some time cleaning the overlooked, avoided and forgot about spaces. YUCK!!!
Part of his mission involved hanging some family pictures we already had in frames. Well, he chose to hang one of my Mom that we used at the church when the family received friends. I saw it on the wall and a flurry of thoughts went through my head-wow, she looks happy there, look at her smile, my Mom is gone, I can't see her smile, will Reagan remember her?, we used the picture at the church, I should be happy she isn't in pain, I should be happy she is in heaven, when do the tears end?, and the thoughts just kept going from there. It's been a little over 3 months now and I can say things are getting a little better. I don't cry every day now..YAY!!
Miss you EGF

Garden, take two

Last year, my garden was a bit of a dissapointment. Pretty much NOTHING grew. I hope this year proves to be better. So far I have planted 2 kinds of beans-1 bush bean and 1 runner, zuchini, squash, carrots, tomatoes and bellpepper, plus basil, cilantro. I have already picked some beans..YAY. We had enough for 2 tiny servings of sauteed green beans. I was incredibly excited. The zuchinni and squash don't look great but they are growing, the carrot seeds washed into a few big clumps so after being thinned I have only a few left to survive the summer. I planted 2 bellpeppers in my daylily bed and plan to add some more one day this week and I have tomatoes in various spots around the house. The tomatoes and bellpeppers both have tiny little fruits on them. If I find a spot, I think I will add some winter squash too-just don't know where to put it. I think I could double the size of my garden and I would  still run out of room.
I read the book square foot gardening and tried to implement a little of it into my plan but my garden bed is laid out a bit larger so I found myself just planting in rows...with all the wasted space and weeds that go with it.
Happy Gardening