Prodigal Bloggers and all that Rot

What I’ve been meaning to do is write an entry for the second birthday of our little Jonah in early July. And now it’s September. Naturally, I would gush on and on, as all mothers are wont to do, but it’s more than that because of this word: bittersweetness. However, at the end of my days, I hope I will look back on *all* of it as sweetness. The “bitter” we perceive is a painful stretching: but a stretching necessary for continuing the journey.

I know I have 6 little boys and I bet its not really shocking to read that I haven’t had ONE. SINGLE. SOLID. night of sleep in 2 years, but really it is kind of shocking. I say this even having survived the toddlerhood of a child on the autism spectrum. It’s true that in many, many ways each child becomes easier to handle as our family has grown— after the first “three under three” that is to say. Babies Jude and Dominic were absolute delights and found their own little rhythm in life quickly. Jonah, however, is a very touchy, high anxiety little bb. He sleeps so lightly that I can barely leave the room before he’s popped up that head of fuzzy, light brown hair and wailing for me to return— the indignation that I would need to do such basic things as brush my teeth or change my clothes is plainly seen in his furrowed, baby brows. He sleeps in bed with me— we adopted bedsharing when Emmett was born and haven’t looked back. Jonah sleeps fairly well when I’m in the actual bed with him. He still wakes 2-3 times every night to nurse. That’s normal for him, really. I have long since abandoned the “baby must sleep through the night” delusion (boy, what a delusion, and boy what a mechanism older generations use as an emotional weapon to make mothers feel guilty when they ask “is he sleeping through the night yet???” as if it’s any sort of gauge of the behavior of the baby or validation of worthiness of the mother). I think sleep training is unnecessarily cruel (especially since I don’t have to get up and work in the morning) and after 5 babies, I know each one to be so very unique (Jude basically threw himself into his own bed before he turned one with a deep sigh of relief), they eventually overcome and triumph.

I’m just tired, really. I crave personal time to create— and by create, I mean something more involved than the 10 minute crochet square I squeeze out a few times a week because it takes zero brain cells, no pattern, and no concentration of any kind. However that time isn’t going to come any time soon, I don’t think. As my older boys are entering teenagerdom, Craig and I are startlingly aware that they are going to need a lot more of us. No, not to make them sandwiches or fold their laundry -they do that themselves- but full mental/emotional presence and lots of discussion. Its a deeper more urgent need than just making sure they’ve got their physical survival basics taken care of and I’ve made it a personal resolution to not take on any more influencer campaigns for the academic school year. While posting a picture or a reel on instagram about a product looks easy, its actually quite a production, and the production isn’t over the moment I hit “post” —like dust off my hands, job done. It takes a large swath of my brainspace better delegated to my children and their education. Don’t knock influencers til you’ve done it. I don’t really consider myself an *actual* influencer because I don’t actively pursue it. I accept requests that benefit my family and me, and maybe I could push it and get us free furniture or something for the boys to destroy on a mass scale but for the now, I’m happy with free school books and a discount for everyone.

No joke, responding to my own dm’s in a meaningful way could easily take up 35+ hours a week. I’ve had to significantly detach from replying and I can’t stand it because I really believe in the mission of personal interaction and understanding each other rather than tapping the heart button and moving on. I’m still deep in my personal health strife and I believe its a cross I’ll always bear in waves of lesser or more degrees. I’m currently battling a wave to the more degree with the added bonus of yet another bout of uveitis and recent investigations strongly suggest the actual source of my autoimmune diseases is Lyme. Right-ho, Jeeves.

That familiar fatigue, whole body aches, mental fog, joint swelling, and general malaise is slowly settling in a bit more each night and the interior anger I used to feel about it isn’t as wild. It’s more of a “okay, here we go”. I’m equipped, and I do trust to meet it in the battlefield with a flaming sword. Lots of liver support going on over here. I fully believe coffee enemas have played a pivotal role in my initial improvement. Of course, I need the time to do them, and a light-sleeping toddler who now wakes up and hollers “MOOOOMAYY! NURTZ!” While I’m trying to heal myself while everyone else gets their quality sleep is a whole thing. But it’s real life. You ask how I do it? This is how: in the cracks of the hours between day and night. If I get something done on an actual flat surface of calendar time, that only means something is being neglected so that I can do it. For example, I’m supposed to be making dinner right now.

I’m not miserable. A bit whiny, I’ll grant you, but not miserable. For the thing is, I have been listening to my body for the last two years and I have a sneaking fear that my reproductive system is also not working the way it should, and I have the sneaking fear that as I am in the later half of my thirties, my body might just say, “Okay I guess we’re done here” and to many of the people in my family —especially the one who have said, in all sincerity, point-blank to my face, “Please don’t have anymore children.”— they’ll be disturbed to read that the thought that I might soon never be able to bring a new little Svellinger baby into the world is —so sad to me. So sad. And I’m seeing everything with more opened eyes (along with the fact that I must struggle a bit more with forgiveness than I thought I did as evidenced by the above grudge).

So while I look at my little Jonah, who is affectionately and appropriately nicknamed “Grumpy” among his other nicknames, I breathe in his baby down hair which isn’t so downy anymore, hold him in my arms night after night, hour after hour, knowing that the end is coming. My body aches, and my heart does too.

My favorite things he says are “yessir” to everyone, whether they’re a sir or a madam, I love that he calls marshmallows “Marshas” and strawberries “Debbies.” Berries in general are called “Bessies” and sandwiches are now and forever known to the Svellingers as “Shibbies.”

The last time of all of this tender sweetness will happen and I won’t realize it until one day, I look up and watch that little boy making himself scrambled eggs in the cast iron and I will not be able to remember the last time I nursed him, or the last time he fit entirely in my lap. . . or the last time he grumpily demanded a “shibbie.” One day, God -willing, I’ll watch him walk away as a grown man with a thick beard to serve his vocation and I won’t be able to recall much of this time at all. I know this is the natural and good progress of rearing a child— the five before him have all had the same “lasts” which I was cognizant of to lesser degrees. I know that the moment my babies are born is also the moment I must forever be preparing my heart to let each one grow and go out to the world to love and fight and fulfill their vocation and serve our Lord. It’s a sword, though, for sure. It hurts, but it’s all sweetness because there’s nothing better.

As a first time mom 13 years ago, I was so anxious about everything I could hardly appreciate my baby boy Lexington and I was desperate for the next milestones, desperate for a break, desperate to pursue my creativity. But as each small person has been given to us, I appreciate a new sweetness and love that I didn’t realize existed and I recognize the wisp of time it stands there before going on along with the setting of the sun. I remember puzzling, one day 4 children ago, in crazed bewilderment at the idea that mothers actually want more children as I scrubbed the floor strewn with the innards of a torn open diaper while the dinner burned in the oven and two toddlers screamed at each other over a toy. In that moment it was an insanity to “enjoy it” as the wise sage mothers tell all the new moms of the world with knowing looks. What I know now is that they meant to say love it: love it with your whole heart and yes, cherish that time of hard, personal character refinement. Every baby is so, so precious. Every little person is an immeasurable gift and I cringe at how cliche I’m winding myself up to sound but there’re no better words. I will never, ever say our family is “complete” because after seeing how unique each child is —despite them being all boys!— I am astounded to think who else might come from the openness of our marriage?

That’s it, I guess. And now, a very late dinner.