thatwiccanmom

[thatwiccanmom]

Things I do every night to have an easier day. (My hour and a half night time routine)

1. Quick tidy in all the rooms of our house. (15 minutes)

2. Chop my veggies for the next night’s dinner. & pack my lunch and my son’s lunch. (15 minutes)

3. Dishes. (5 minutes)

4. Wipe down all the counters in the kitchen, kitchen table and high chair. ( 3 minutes)

5. Quick sweep of middle floor. (5 minutes)

6. Fold one load of laundry, wash and dry another. (15 minutes)

7. One weekly chore. (Monday’s is our free day cause I work late. Tuesday- clean windows. Wednesday - clean mirrors. Thursday clean toilets. Friday clean tubs.) This way come Saturday all we have to do is vacuum and mop. (15 minutes)

8. Work out. Twenty minutes of movement that’s it.

9. Set the coffee maker for in the morning. (2 minutes)

10. Go over our budget, make sure all of our transactions are cleared and adding up correctly. (5 minutes)

Then we just veg out. Watch tv, read books, play board games whatever.

[thatwiccanmom]

Surviving a power outage with an infant!  Baby boy is just over 3 months old, and a tornado unfortunately has left us with out power. These are the few things we’re doing to help us get through until the power comes back on! 1.) Alternative heat source.  We thankfully have a gas fireplace. So even though the temperature is dropping we have a way to stay snuggled up and warm. Bonus help for this --easily portable bassinet to move to the room where the heat source will be.

2.) Power banks (charged up). We have a couple of battery packs that we keep charged up that way we can keep our phones and ipad charged. No ipad charged = no sound machine for baby to sleep to = not a sleeping baby= grump parents.

3.) Candles and flash lights.  We’ve got a pretty industrial flashlight,  that can easily light an entire room. We use that one for showering, or feeding times (can’t confuse those wake windows and sleep cues.) For the just hanging out parts of our colonial days, we’ve got tea lights and bigger candles.

4.) Ways to feed your baby. If baby is on purees you’re going to need extra of those handy.  With us baby is on formula and thankfully our water heater is on gas. So baby can easily have warm milk. However, if yours isn’t. Get some distilled jugs of water or packaged water bottles to keep around.

5.) Propane stove and packaged snacks. Just to heat up milk, some canned food for us adults etc.

6.) Keep that baby on their schedule. Don’t let a day with out power throw you off.  7.) Pumping. I’m an exclusive pumper, so this was definitely a panic time for me. But thankfully my pump also runs off of double a’s as well as I have my manual pump if I get extra desperate.  8.)Extra batteries. For flash lights, radios, pumps whatever you might need.

9.) Diapers and formula. We cloth diaper, but obviously can’t wash them with no power. We have one box of disposables in his size just in case we’re out for too long. Also we keep an extra can of formula in case roads are ever too bad to travel. 10.) Board games, card games, books etc.  Usually my partner and I have adult time by binge watching the food network. So we gotta have something to keep us entertained too!

Thankfully, my job still has power and the roads are safe on the way in to work.  I was able to bring battery banks, ipads and phones in to charge all day at work too.  

[thatwiccanmom]

Newborn Expectations vs. Realities

1. Natural Birth I thought I was going to have a beautiful simple natural birth. However, due to a kidney issue I had to be induced. After hours of laboring as naturally as I could baby flipped breech-so I had to have an emergency c-section.

2. Breastfeeding Just did not work for us. I am now pumping and bottle feeding and supplementing with formula.

3. Immediate adoration for my child. Big no from me. I felt like I had a stranger living in my house that I had no idea how to relate to or care for. 4. Husband’s expected lack of involvement. I had a really hard time bouncing back from my c-section. Husband stepped in and honestly has done most of the “parenting” from birth. 

5.Sacrificing the things that are important to me. I still work. I still keep a clean house. I still hang out with my friends. It’s definitely harder to balance all those things, and yes they look a little bit differently now (working from home every now and then, cleaning to a lower standard, hanging out for short times) but they still get done.

6. Patience. I thought a switch was going to turn on in my brain where the blood curdling cries of my child wouldn’t infuriate me. They still do but I’m more comfortable walking away now than I was in the beginning.

7. You’ll know your baby’s needs. It’s all trial and error. I try to feed, then diaper change, then rock. It’s all guess work. 

Your perspective, your outlook is determined by you and only you. In the beginning I felt disappointment and guilt because I wasn’t enjoying the newborn stage. What I didn’t realize was I wasn’t enjoying it because I had all these expectations I thought I was falling short on. Once I started rolling with the punches, and accepting our new normal  our new reality I was happy. & baby boy was happy.  Here’s to you mamas and papas out there. Do what is best for you and your child. As long as they are healthy and loved you are doing amazing. 

[thatwiccanmom]

Time for September Intentions.  Manifesting your dreams starts with speaking your intentions. As we approach the Wiccan New Year and as my life humbly spins out of control towards an impending due date for baby’s arrival.... setting myself small realizations I’d like to see come true seems to help clear my mind.  **Honor everyone’s present with respect. They’re all a part of my journey. ** My hormones have been over the top to say the least. I have been short tempered. I have made snap judgement. I have cut ties with lots of people flippantly. I need to recognize that each of them have a role in molding and shaping who I am and inevitably the universe I encounter everyday. **I am a tiny speck in this vast universe.**  I am not the most important person. My problems are not the biggest or the greatest. I am fragile. I am weak. Asking for help is not a negative thing.  **Embrace the good and the bad of everyone and every situation.** Surrounding myself by people I only completely agree 100% with creates stagnation and doesn’t progress me any further on my journey in the universe. **Everyone’s way is not my way nor does it have to be.** When people are offering unsolicited advice about unborn babe they are simply saying what worked for them. They are not trying to force their way on me.  **Absorb. Think. Then Act.** Do nothing in haste or flippantly.

[thatwiccanmom]

Trying to revamp.

I’m brand spanking new to the Wiccan community and also brand spanking new to the mom to be world.  A little bit about me:

I’ve spent the past year on and off reading all that I could get my hands on about Wicca, not really wanting to jump into it until I felt “ready”. I felt like I couldn’t practice unless I knew every sabbat, esbat ritual, stone correspondence, herb correspondence, until I felt called to a Goddess etc. Essentially I was making excuses for myself. But now more than ever do I feel the desire to connect spiritually with the Goddess and the Earth.  This is also my first time getting pregnant, so I’m a bit all over the place. I just want that sense of community, strength, and over all connectedness to keep me grounded and healthy through out pregnancy--and in raising baby.  So anyway that’s me. That’s where I am. I am in desperate need of new blogs to follow (mom and not!) for guidance and support.  Love always.

[thatwiccanmom]

[thatwiccanmom]

Grounding. Let me chat with you for a hot minute about the absolute chaos that has been my life this passed  week. I don’t want to go into too much detail but usually our animal intake for baby orphaned kittens is maybe 3  every two weeks. Well this week we took in 18. As the Foster Coordinator it is my job to find these guys families that will get up every 3 hours and feed the little babies. I would place one litter, and then the next day another would come in. We we were already short foster homes. I was stressed. I lashed out on a couple of my coworkers and bosses. I was dealing with foster families, while trying to lead our summer camp from 8-12 everyday, coupled with also feeding 12+kittens at work until they went to foster. It was a wreck. I was a wreck. I haven’t felt the need or desire to smoke in 4+ years but I broke down and bought a pack on Friday.  Here’s what kills me the most. I am an absolute idiot. The week before this. I woke up every morning and took just a little 5 minute pause to sit outside and take in my coffee. I’ve been diving into Wicca and pretty much all of the books and articles and podcasts I’ve read have said that grounding yourself is really the best way to start to get into magic. Magic is of nature so it makes sense to really start back at square one connect and absorb. So every morning I would go outside after I got dressed and ready for work and would just sip my coffee. I’d listen to the breeze and the birds. I’d feel the cold wet dewy grass. I’d take in the smell of nothing mixed with a hint of my coffee. I’d remind myself that this is where I came from. This is where I needed to get back to, to this beautiful neutral state. The state of molding creating a blank state for me to start my day. Whenever blips of yesterday would come in to my head I’d remind myself how tiny and how insignificant those blips are compared to how vast the very ground beneath my feet is. I was bigger than those blips. I was better. I was stronger and today I could do that. Today I could do whatever that pleased me if only I reminded myself of where I came from. I also thanked the universe and Goddess for being with me and for providing constant reminders through out the day.  That was it. Just five minutes. I did not have a single catastrophe or bad day during this week. Now what do you think I didn’t do last week? What an absolute idiot I am. Why is it that myself, my soul, the single most important thing in carrying out my life--is the first I starve when things get stressful? I had time to clean my house. I had time to sit on my couch and mope every night. Hell, I had time to go to the store and buy a pack of cigarettes--but I didn’t have five minutes to connect, recharge, and feed my soul.  It’s Saturday as I sit and type and edit this. A lazy Saturday. A calm after last week’s tornado. I’ve had time to reflect. I’ve had time to read my astrological charts (um retrograde freaking city last week my dudes). I’ve had time to journal and read.  As surely as the world spins madly on, next week I’ll do better. I’m not sure how many will read or follow this blog and I’m definitely not sure of your religious preference. Whatever you religion is I urge you to take a brief moment of your day to get back to it and feed your soul. Whether that’s reading the bible, praying, grounding yourself, doing sun salutations, or just your basic self reflections and self proclamations-- just do it. Get yourself back to zero, before your day even starts, neutralize. 

[thatwiccanmom]

Welcome to the blog.  I have no idea what this is going to be. To be honest, I just recently went on a cross country road trip and felt like I should use something to document my life. Then I thought I might as well document the rest of it. We’ll see how long I can keep this up.   What to expect (probably) from this blog:  tips, recipes, shameless pictures of food and my face, wiccan/pagan things, ttc things, and pretty much anything else I feel like posting.