Um… lessee… Yup. One whole month. One whole crazy, hectic, busy busy month.

But, it’s all over now, and we’re back to normal. Or at least as close to “normal” as we ever get around here.

I had a great time as piano accompanist for more than a dozen students at the Fredericton Music Festival. I got to meet, chat, and hang out with (meaning: get very silly with) the other local accompanists. I suppose I’m not quite finished yet — two of the kids I played for are performing in the final awards concerts.

My son competed at the Atlantic Gymnastics Competition as the only Fredericton boy on the NB Provincial team.  He got a 5th place on the pommel, and while he was hoping for a higher standing, we’re all quite proud of him for his first competition at this level.  I’m a bit frustrated, though, that we haven’t seen how his scores lined up with the other events or overall — only that he wasn’t top 6.  But I’d like to know if he was 7th, or 27th, and how close the marks were.

All the girls results are posted at his gym club, but not the boys.  And what’s even more frustrating — there was an article in the local paper detailing all the results of the local athletes.  All the girls, that is.  Even the ones whose best showing was 7th, and 28th overall.  Not a mention of my son.  After all the sacrificing we’ve done for his gymnastics, after the excitiment and the pride of making the provincial team, and the stress and the joy of going to Atlantics… to be left out like that, I confess, it hurts.

It hurts me.  I haven’t even shown him.  I can’t imagine how he’d feel.

Well, in other news, my baby seedlings are doing great, except for the onions, which the cats decided was cat grass.  Half of them are still hanging on, but I bought a package of onion sets anyway.  The baby tomato plants are beautiful, the peppers are growing, the cucumbers are humungous.  Just a couple more weeks and the frost danger is passed.

And after nearly a month of just not worrying about “school” stuff, we’ve finally gotten back into it.  Or starting to, anyway.  We got about a week and a half into our second six-week session using Charlotte Mason ideas, when we just gave up.  It wasn’t worth the effort and the struggle with our busy-ness.  He actually did a few little things on his own in the meantime, and read up a storm  – he just finished The Hobbit last night and now wants to start Lord of the Rings!  This is the same boy who less than a month ago cried and wailed and sobbed when I said we’d be reading The Hobbit next.   Go figure.

I’ve just decided to call the previous attempt at a 6-week session a wash, and start again fresh.  This week, we’re mostly just reviewing, remembering what we’d been doing before, gradually adding subject areas back in each day until we’re back to ‘normal’ for next week.

For instance, for French, today we just reviewed the words he’s learned so far.  Most of them, he actually remembered himself, and I refreshed his memory on the rest.  I think we’re ready to start doing some French on paper, he’s got enough oral vocabulary and his pronounciation is good, next week we’ll start again with Mimi and French phonics.  So today, I simply wrote down the words he knows, so he could see what they look like, and I had him sort them into cognates, near-cognates, and non-cognates, which he actually thought was a lot of fun.

I think the trickiest thing to get back into will be Math, so this week we’ll just do games, and not start lessons again until I’m confident he’s refreshed enough and ready.

Oh, and I started a new house rule — no electronics (video games, etc) until noon, including for me — unless it’s directly required for school stuff.  I have a bad habit of sitting down with my morning coffee and reading my online comics, only to find myself distracted by the vast mysteries of the web and the morning nearly gone, with agitated and ignored children at my feet and me still in my pajamas.  Then I expect Flipper to attend to his schoolwork without distractions before he can play video games.  Yeah, hypocrite much?

So with this new rule in place, we were done most of his work by 10am and went outside for the rest of the morning — Pomme is utterly in love with the new sandbox.  When Flipper first saw his list of work this morning, he had whined and moaned that it was too much… Even though it was only half the usual amount and only review at that!  But when he himself observed that he was nearly done and it was still early… he voluntarily apologized to me for having complained that it was too much.

You could have picked me up off the floor with a spatula.

Things have just been so busy, what with running my kids around and my work as a musician, and trying to get a new house organized.  I still plan to get it going eventually… I hope to get a serger after Christmas, which will certainly make a difference!

But in the meantime… I think I’ll just turn this site into a good old blog!  I’ll be blogging on whatever is relevant to us… homeschooling, parenting, eco-stuff, music, whatever I think might be interesting.   I certainly am opiniated enough to make a go of blogging about it LOL…

My sewing room is nearly ready to go. It could use a coat of paint, the colour is hideous, but that will have to wait for awhile, I guess. I hope to start turning out a few products this fall, if I can get the whole “online shopping cart” thing figured out!

In the meantime, I do have some handmade hemp jewelry that’s ready to go. Some with gems, some with mother of pearl, some in natural colour, some in pretty purple, and I can do custom work as well. Since I don’t have a shopping cart set up yet, please just email me (check the “contact us” page) if you’re interested in anything. I’ll be posting pictures of what I have ready-made soon!

So I set out to come up with simple, affordable clothes for mom. And while we’re at it, what about baby too? We have been practicing EC with our daughter, and once again it’s quite difficult to find clothes suited for this. For instance, toddler pants are always cut with a huge diaper allowance, with the crotch seam down to their knees! When your toddler is wearing underwear or training pants, this is rather annoying!

The Mother By Nature name is meant to convey many things. I am a mother, by my very nature. Mother Nature is the source of our inspiration and our fabrics. And the processes of Nature have made me a Mother.

“Mother” has everything to do with us. I shared my dream with my mother, and we are becoming business partners. My mother is an exceptionally talented seamstress and designer, with experience in baby clothes and nursing wear (and everything else!)

In addition to clothing and toys, we also plan on producing green bags — reusable cloth bags for shopping, gift-wrapping, whatever you like! We will offer workshops in Fredericton on babywearing, and may in the near future carry slings as well. We’re looking into other green products that are difficult to find in Canada. And of course, my handmade jewelry will be available, all from natural materials such as hemp, leather, bone, wood, and semi-precious stones.

My husband and I, with my son and our daughter, are currently living in Ontario. We are moving to New Brunswick this summer, where I will be teaming up with my mother and by this fall, Mother By Nature will be launched!