I meant to post this earlier, because the first workshop was tonight.  But better late than never — Next week, Judy King from the South Shore Waldorf School in Nova Scotia (the closest Waldorf School to us) will be presenting a talk on “Rhythm, The Root of Discipline: Insight on Healthy Daily Rhythms.”  Details and registration at fredkid.com.

Tonight’s talk was by Marieka Chaplin, a local Frederictonian who has taught at the South Shore Waldorf School.  She’s also part of a local group looking into the possibility of starting a Waldorf School here in Fredericton.  I imagine a huge part of that is just finding out if there’s enough interested parents who could afford it.  And so, spreading the word about Waldorf, in order to get parents interested, is a primary undertaking of theirs right now.

Anyway, the talk was advertised as being about Movement in Early Childhood.  And she did talk about it.  But I’ll be honest — the talk was more an advertisement for Waldorf in general.  Which is fine, I guess, but I was hoping to get more specific and practical stuff about how to incorporate Waldorf-style movement into my childrens’ lives.

On the plus side, though, I had the great thrill of being in a room filled with like-minded people, including several homeschoolers.  Despite being back here in Fredericton for nearly two years now, we still don’t know very many other homeschoolers, so it’s reassuring to know that they are out there.

I even got up the nerve to introduce myself to one young lady who wants to homeschool her young daughter, but is understandably nervous.  It’s such a great leap to take when you don’t have strong resources around you for support and encouragement… and heck, just plain old information.  We ended up talking for a long time and will keep in touch.

Would I send my kids to a Waldorf school if one opened up here?  Probably not, I’ll be honest.   Especially for preschool/kindergarten.  The speaker tonight was making it very clear how the kindergarten environments are designed to emulate, as much as possible, a warm and loving home environment.  Why would I choose a mere emulation when I can provide a real warm and loving home environment?

But, would I take advantage if they offered day programs as an option, rather than only full-time enrollment?  Hmm.  That, I would most certainly consider!!!

So it was with a fair bit of nerves that I went about my morning duties.  Would I catch the parade commander’s cues to march off the colours?  Would we be in the right place at the right time?  Would I be able to hear them announce the hymns?

Adding to my nerves was the fact that this service would probably be more watched than usual, thanks to the idiots who vandalized the cenotaph a few days ago.  This is, by the way, the official provincial cenotaph, not just the local one.  Here’s a great video by Charles Leblanc showing the damage:

But in the end, Remembrance Day isn’t about me, is it?  I gathered up my guts, had a great chat with the parade commander before we started who set me straight with a cheery smile, and off we went, without a hitch.  Well, no major ones anyway, but if you didn’t notice then I won’t tell. 

Flipper and Pomme came to watch, of course.  Here in New Brunswick, Remembrance Day is an official holiday — schools are closed (not that it makes a difference for us, but for most families it certainly does), offices are closed (so hubby was able to take the kids), most stores are closed.   Apparently there were about 5000 people in attendance, and 300 soldiers in the parade.  That’s young soldiers, not counting the elderly vets who were also out in great numbers.

Flipper took a great video of the parade arriving at the cenotaph.  I’m so grateful to him, since I never get to actually see parades anymore!

Not bad for an 11-year-old with a cheap videocam, eh?

Charles also captured a nice picture of the spectators showing Flipper (in the grey jacket with yellow shirt) and Pomme with daddy (sitting down beside Flipper).

That being said, I was sure I had written a couple posts without pictures anyway, but they’re not here.  I guess I just imagined it…

And I have been busy, after all, what with the City Band summer concerts and my garden and my kids and all the usual housewifey-homeschooley stuff.  But if I had time to play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook 500 times, I had time to dash off a blog update or two.

Even my writing at Eco Child’s Play has lapsed… I wrote no posts at all in June, and only 2 so far for July (I need to write 2 more by the end of July in order to be paid — I have them all written in my head….)

Do most bloggers go through this?  Periods of time when they’re just not into it?  Is it a summer thing?

I need to get myself back on track.  I’ve just accepted the role of webmaster for the Fredericton Green Party Electoral District Association’s website, which needs a makeover and an interactive component — yup, I’m going to add a blog.

How have you regained your blogging passion when life just seemed more interesting?

I stopped into the Superstore this morning for some groceries, and popped into their garden center as I needed more compost for my potatoes.  I have been getting “good stuff” from the “real” garden center, but since I was there anyway I thought I’d see what they had.

At first, I saw just some no-name cow manure and a brand of sheep manure I’d used before and been very unimpressed with (for some reasons, there are large pieces of sea shells all through it).  Then I saw something I wasn’t expecting to see at all — mushroom compost!

Yup, President’s Choice (Loblaw’s proprietary brand) has bags of mushroom compost. It’s not cheap — $5.99/bag, whereas the unimpressive sheep manure is just $1.99/bag.  But this stuff is black gold. It’s worth twice that, in my opinion.

I only wish I’d known about this back when I was making all my Mel’s Mix.  It’s now too late to really mix it in to all the beds, since they’re all planted and settled in their ways heh… But I can use it to finish the potatoes, and for any topping-up and re-filling needed in the existing beds.  I have a bucket of Mel’s Mix left over which I’ll be using for topping-up as well (some of the beds compacted more than I expected so I’ll add more mix as the plants grow, especially so that the carrots will have more than 3.5″ to grow in…) so I think I’ll go ahead and mix some mushroom into that.  It will throw the mix a little off 1/3-1/3-1/3, but that’s okay.  It’s MUSHROOM COMPOST!!

Let me clarify.  I’ve been playing the trombone since I was 10 years old.  When I was 12, I joined the City Band.  I played all through high school.  I played in the jazz band.  And when I went to Acadia University for my music degree (majoring in piano), I continued playing in the University Band and the jazz band and even took a year of lessons, for credit.

But I was not, what you would call, a great trombone player.  I was decent.  That’s all.  I enjoyed it to death.  I could count and figure out complicated passages, but I was not a “clean” player, I didn’t have great tone at all.  One band conductor, who shall remain nameless (but he knows who he is if he reads this!) once said to me in frustration, “Heather, you have to forget that you are a shy, skinny, teenaged white girl, and play like a 40-year-old large black man.”  I got the point.  But I still didn’t have the sound.

At Acadia, I was flying through all my courses with A’s and A+’s.  Trombone lessons, however, were frustrating.  I just couldn’t do the things my prof asked me to do.  My lips just didn’t work that way and my lungs would not cooperate.  When I barely managed to squeak a grade of B, that was the end of that. I’d still play in the bands for fun, but any notions I had of becoming a “trombonist” fell by the wayside.

I took one more stab at it, playing in the Music Festival back home one spring.  The adjudicator happened to be one of my profs at Acadia.  After my performance, he said to the audience, “Let me reassure you that this young lady is a very fine pianist.”  So much for that.

For the next 12 years after getting my BMus, I barely touched my horn.  My life took on other directions, and I just didn’t have the time to play in bands, as much as I would have liked to.

This past year, when we decided to move back home, I wanted to get back into it.  I knew I would be working less, and so I would join the City Band once again.  I knew I had a long road ahead of me of getting my chops back, but I missed it so much, I knew I could do it.

From the beginning, as expected, I had low endurance and some serious trouble in the middle range notes.

What I hadn’t expected was that — other than a bit of muscle fatigue — I would have gotten so much better.

I could play the high range notes more clearly.  I had a full, round open sound.   Within a few weeks of getting back into it (and not even practicing all that much), I was coping with all the band music just fine, and finding it easier than ever before.  Endurance would come with time.

What I also did not expect, was getting called for gigs.  As a trombonist.  As a pianist, sure, that’s how I make my living.  But when a local choir (one of the good ones too) needed a brass quartet for one of their Christmas pieces, I was called.  The other trombonist was my old junior high school and city band director, and one of the trumpets was my old high school director.  NO PRESSURE!

I felt terribly out of my league… but I did fine.

Then over the holidays, I was contacted by a local chamber orchestra.  They needed some trombones for spring concerts, a Schumann Symphony and Mozart’s Requiem, and had heard that I was a “fine” trombone player.

Well, then.  How could I say no to that?  After all, this is MOZART’S REQUIEM, only the single greatest piece of music ever composed…

I was in for yet another surprise.  It turned out they were giving me the alto trombone part.  For me and my tenor trombone.  In other words, I’d have to play very, very, very high notes.  In the alto clef.

The first rehearsal was an adventure in sight-reading and cacked notes.  Honestly, at that point, I wondered if I was in over my head.

But after a bit of practice at home, I started feeling much better about this super-high range.  At today’s rehearsal, I nailed 90% of the high Bb’s, 75% of the high C’s, and well… none of the high D’s, but there are only 2 of those.  Everything up to the high A was just fine.

I’ve decided to make an investment and get a couple new mouthpieces that are designed for playing in the high range.  It should help the consistency of those high notes.  I’m even contemplating getting an actual alto trombone, but they’re expensive and we’re, well, broke.

But even though the accuracy of the high notes is still a bit sketchy at times, this fact remains true:  they sound good.  The whole brass section sounds great and I’m soaring out on top of it all, oftentimes even higher than the trumpet parts.  The other orchestra members are frequently leaning back and commenting to us how great we sound.

And I feel comfortable up there.  I feel confident.  And competent.

How did taking over 12 years off, improve my skills so much?  When did I become a trombonist??

Photo credit: gregor-y via Creative Commons

… specialty baby shops are starting to carry some slings other than the Baby Bjorn-style carriers.  But buyer beware!  Most of these are c-r-a-p.

Well it turns out that there is a baby boutique right here in little ‘ole Fredericton, New Brunswick, which actually carries some of the GOOD slings.

BUMP Maternity and More. This boutique carries a variety of useful (and some not-so-useful, of course) baby items, many of which are harder to find in your typical baby chain stores.  For instance, they carry Babylegs.  And Bummis cloth diapers.  They support ‘mompreneurs’, Canadian companies, and ethical business practices.

But – perhaps most importantly – they carry slings.  And not just the crap slings either (though they do carry the Heart to Heart, which – while Canadian (yay)- is not a favourite of mine… I’ve seen too many parents struggle with the excess of padding, unable to get a good, secure carry).

They carry Cuddly Wraps.  They carry Hotslings pouches.  They carry Ellaroo mei tais and ring slings.   And they carry the Ergo structured carrier.

Their website is a bit splotchy, with links called “test1″ and areas labelled “place info here.”  The shop is similar… the floor is strewn with area rugs which almost but not quite completely fail to cover the busted flooring underneath.   If they were brand new, this would be more understandable, but apparently they have been around since at least 2007.  Perhaps this is simply a mark of the disinterest our society has with actually supporting small shops and baby-friendly accessories.  Or maybe they’re just lazy and disorganized.  I don’t know.

What I do know, is that it’s downright shameful that this shop is not crawling with customers every hour of every day.  That they haven’t had to expand in order to meet demand.  That most people don’t even know about this place.

The website gives their address as 88 Regent St, but the shop I visited is in the Priestman St. mini-mall, where Blockbuster is.  I’m assuming they’ve recently moved.  This might explain the half-finished appearance of the store, but just further exacerbates the sloppiness of the website.

At any rate, I can only commend them for their efforts.  Shops like this will never be successful and popular until they at least exist… we have to start somewhere.  I know that I will be contacting them, to perhaps organize some babywearing workshops for New Brunswick moms.  Or to offer tips on website maintenance…

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!