37 going on 13

Oh. I see that I haven’t been here since Autumn of 2020.

If you’re not following me on Instagram, sorry. Everything’s there. But not everything, of course. Just the highlights. I wrote the following string of thoughts the night before my 37th birthday this month and wondered if I should just let it become part of the compressed memory abyss of my iPhone, or if I should publish it on ye olde bloge. I suppose I went with publish didn’t I?

The last time I wrote, Jonah was just born. That busy bee is now 16 months old and takes great enjoyment out of climbing onto the table while we are doing our school lessons and grabbing the pencil from a hard working brother, and then running off with it filled with unfettered glee and total unawareness of the dangers of being a toddler and running with a pencil. He’s vocabulary is exploding with new words every day and his attempts to make the sign of the cross when we pray together is my favorite thing.

Lex is now 12.
Emmett is will be 11 in December.
Collin is 9.
Jude is 6.
Dominic will be 4 in December.

They all play together and fight together with equal amounts of enthusiasm and delight. My favorite episode of this play-fighting happened while watching them tumble together on the trampoline this past summer; all legs and arms tangled into one lump of little boys squealing like little piggies, but I noticed Jude’s face emerge from the pile as Lexington pulled him upward by his nostrils with two fingers.

THAT is the epitome of having 6 little boys, long with waking up to the echoing BOOM of exploding pumpkins in the backyard by way of mixing a 2 liter of Coke with chlorine.

We’ve spent the time since Jonah was born establishing a daily tea time at 3pm with prayer, reading, and of course something sweet.

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A post shared by Carolyn Svellinger (@carolyn_svellerella)

I’ve stepped away from creating artwork for my shop, and stopped marketing for it on social media to focus on my health. Brass + Mint co is still open, and I am still selling my prints and stickers, but everyone’s favorite coffee mug will have to wait until the spring.

Creating art is one type of work (the enjoyable type, in my opinion), but the sourcing, shipping, and admin done in the background is a beast of it’s own and I had to prioritize my health. Plus, my arthritis has come to my hands and wrists. I haven’t even been able to knit much. BUT overall, I am doing better than I have been in a year. I stopped taking my medication early this year and haven’t needed much beyond an occasional Aleve for the last 4-5 months.

And now that you’re caught up, here’s what I wrote the night I turned 37.
I was tired.

I’m less tired today. Jonah is completely happy and healthy, and my eye seems to be getting better, so never ye fear…

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—The wee hours of the morning of November 5—

I have spent the past 72 hours on febrile seizure watch. Give me endless phlegm, give me vomit, give me diarrhea and give me scrubbing and washing til my hands are cracked and bleeding, but do not give me febrile seizures.

Jude suffered a tonic clonic (grand mal) febrile seizure when he had just turned 3 and I still have ptsd almost 4 years later from watching his face turn blue and foam bubbled from his mouth as he convulsed while I called out the Holy name of Jesus— utterly frozen, so frozen I couldn’t remember how to dial 911.

Seizures disturb me on some cellular level which I cannot find the words to describe and I wouldn’t wish them on any parent or any person in the world.

Three nights ago I curled up next to my feverish 1 year old in bed thinking it was nothing to worry about.

At some point in the night I was awoken to his little body burning hotly against mine. he had become alarmingly warm. I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back, something was wrong. The air in the room smelled strange and I wondered if Jonah had filled his diaper or even vomited. “Maybe its a stomach bug” I thought to myself, but there was nothing.

And thence happened: A huge, whole-body jerk, a sharp gasp— and then he relaxed, cried out, woke up and crawled over to me.

While I was holding him, it happened again. Like some electric current suddenly shocking his entire spine.

This time I knew what it was.

This time I knew what needed to be done. …or I hoped I did, anyway.

I woke up Craig and we rushed downstairs, gave Jonah electrolytes and fever reducers, all the while I mentally prepared and prayed harder than almost anything I’ve ever prayed for in my life that I could be strong enough to handle God’s will if what I feared came full throttle.

“I am SO afraid of this” I told the Lord with all my heart.

I walked the living room with Jonah in my arms for an hour, praying for the power of Jesus Christ to slowly lower his body temperature safely and gently. And it did. In two hours he had broken into a sweat and the fever had backed down.

But I remained vigilant. In small children, symptoms are subtle and move quickly. I couldn’t sleep. My heart was pounding in anticipation for a big one to come from nowhere, remembering how Jude had seized merely seconds after having a calm conversation about popsicles when he was sick those few years ago. Every tiny movement Jonah made, I was ready.

We are now 72 hours later and Jonah is his normal self: babbling, giggling, recklessly climbing, dutifully hurrying over to the trash can with his dirty diaper to throw it away, saying “TRASH! BYE!” As he closes the door; waking me up in the morning by holding my face in his hands and smacking his rosebud lips together and sweetly saying “Mama. Mama” to tell me he’s coming in for a drool covered kiss.

Today, as I brim over with gratitude for my husband, 6 children, and a warm house, I turn 37 and I realize that I am still a child.

Still a selfish, spoiled brat, really.

The last month or so has been taxing on both Craig and I.  He has his heavy burden as provider for this family of six little boys, a burden I can do but little to help him carry.

For me, homeschooling has not been going so smoothly mostly due to having 2 toddlers screaming their lungs out during our lessons, but also because our dear Emmett is having a hard time adjusting to a heavier workload. Emmett, I’ll remind you, is autistic.

Something that might cause a simple eye-roll or even a few moments of moaning and groaning, or even a week of periodic complaining from my other boys, is a daily battle of yelling until his voice is hoarse that he cannot find the exact length of pencil he desires, and that one of his school books is missing, and most especially that he has to do more subjects than just math each day (which is what our summer school looks like- just math and reading). He struggles making changes and transitions.

Living in an environment where you are yelled at from almost the moment you wake til the moment you sleep is hard and I know anyone will acknowledge that.

Craig comes home from a long day of his own work stresses to a different kind of stress at home, and we don’t even need to exchange looks to recognize we are both worn out. It’s a phase, and we both know it. But it’s hard breaking through.

The boys, knowing my birthday was coming soon, had asked me what I wanted to do for my celebration this year. “All I want is a day of silence, a day where I don’t have to hear crying and bickering. I day where I don’t have to yell to hear myself speak.” …or thinks, for that matter. I had secretly hoped for a moment where I could shower, do my hair, put on makeup and get Craig to grab a 37 year portrait of me.

And it was shortly after that when I caught one child putting a Tide pod into another child’s mouth. Yes I know. Tide Pods. I used to make my own natural laundry detergent– for *years* I made it myself, but I got tired. I allowed Tide Pods. And now I have my regrets.

The next day one child had a serious choking incident on a chicken nugget, and the day after that someone grabbed a cup full of bourbon whiskey off the counter and, being too heavy to balance poured it instead straight into his own face and eyes.

All of this calls to mind an early Disney Donald Duck cartoon titled: How to Have a Household Accident… it’s complete with the tired Daisy Duck standing in the kitchen: bags under her eyes, curlers in her hair, and a long-drawn ragged cigarette hanging from her mouth. I’ll grab you the Gif:

Oh but there’s more: the next morning I woke up with pain and redness and diminished vision in my right eye which turned out to be autoimmune uveitis, and then the medicine given to me made some crazy thing happen to my pupil so that it looked like I had the eye of a goat, while also making me feel constantly nauseous and very light sensitive.

I have worked so, so hard for over a year to battle my autoimmune disease and my chronic inflammation and pain and swelling and hobbling and even my voice–Yes I lost my voice last year for about 3 months– and I had finally, FINALLY, reached a few months where I felt relief. I danced. I danced in the living room for the first time in years to the shock (and maybe terror?) of my children… and yet a few days ago I woke up with an attack on my eyes. It felt like the actual Devil had been conversing with his demons saying “well, if we can’t get her body, we’ll try for her eyes now.”

And then the febrile seizure watch happened and what that did to my mental and emotional state- to my nervous system- I felt it just crumple the night of the watch.

Here come the vision puns I warned everyone about on Instagram:

I am so shortsighted and I am so embarrassed by my shallowness and neglect of the big picture.

I’m now 37 years old and previous to Jonah’s fever there I was secretly hoping for a glamour shot for Instagram and complaining about every day life— every day life!

(Tell me you’re a millennial without telling me you’re a millennial)

Yes- the kids getting into poison, choking on a chicken nugget, and water boarding themselves with bourbon whiskey… that’s every day life. Granted, it was a rough run of days, but generally this is average life stuff. Some days, you get water boarded with whiskey, other days big brother tries to feed little brother some laundry detergent. Sometimes it’s all in one week.

But I still feel like a total child waiting for someone to save me or solve the problem for me. Ain’t no one comin’ but Jesus, frand, I remind myself often.

When do grown-up people actually grow up?

I’m pretty sure it’s the moment they start living to serve rather than be served —and I still battle it in my heart and I’m not good at covering it up and pretending. I am not satisfied with superficiality– even though I seek it out or try to escape into it.

Maybe I just wear my heart on the internet and everyone else has a great grasp on self composure… or maybe real life friends who help them work through their character flaws.

I think my immaturity boils down to that same old forbidden fruit; the question Bilbo asks himself “why shouldn’t I keep it?”

The question with which the White Witch attempts to ensnare The Magician’s Nephew “do you not see, fool, that one bite of that apple would heal her?”

In fact it is the very thing St. Michael the Archangel admonished Satan with “WHO IS LIKE UNTO GOD?”

Indeed, who is?

Ah, it’s me, sometimes, Lord.

It’s me, grasping for control, comfort, vanity, even wisdom, but with cowardly fear and a sense of pride that I alone could possibly have matters under control. I reach for the Apple, I grasp onto the Ring.

I want to believe that I would be like these valiant, beautiful heroes in the stories I so admire, and these marvelous Saints whose lives inspire me so deeply, but the daily sludge, the daily battle I fight in my own home, I lose almost all the time for my own selfishness, my own comfort, my own vanities. Here I am, 37 years old and I do not have my act together.

37!
Still selfish!
Still has things I want to do when I grow up! 🙋🏻‍♀️

AND YET–

St. Josemaría Escrivá wrote “Don’t forget that the saint is not the person who never falls, but rather the one who never fails to get up again, humbly and with a holy stubbornness.”

Even Boromir redeemed himself in the end, even Eustace Scrubb shed his skins. And the Saints, our brothers and sisters in heaven: ever more brilliant are their real life conversions of heart who entered the gates of Heaven into the Glory of our Creator.

Jesus, if I am still a child, I am yet Your child.

Give me your strength, and for your sake, use my stubbornness for your glory.

TLDR; I’m 37 now and still don’t know how to adult. THE TRIALS of making an admin phone call to resolve an issue with my card have me wanting to recline on my chaise longue with my hand fan and smelling salts …except I don’t own a chaise longue. Maybe when I’m 40? 40th birthday present: a chaise longue? Is that a thing?

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