Disco Chronicles, Prologue

As promised...today starts the Disco Chronicles. An absolutely true but completely unauthorized biography of my youngest son. Completely against his will. Which only makes it better, no? And I will apologize as this first part doesn't contain alot of funny Sean, but you have to set the scene, don't you? So here's a tidbit of convo from this morning to make you giggle and start you off in a good mood~

Me~ Your cat is bugging me. He won't stop walking on my keyboard and purring in my face.

Sean~ so toss him out of the room and shut the door.

Me~ No. I couldn't resist him, he hardly ever comes to me wanting cuddles anymore. You seem to have enticed him to the dark side. He's yours now.

Sean~ It's true. You should come to the dark side. We have cheese. And wine.

Me~ Cats don't drink wine.

Sean~ No, but they love cheese.

Me~ (suddenly remebering my role as parent) Wait! How do you have wine??

Sean~ I don't.

Me~ but you just said...

Sean~ I was trying to lure you to the dark side. I don't have to be honest. In fact, honestly evil might be an oxymoron.

Me~ Your dad's an oxymoron. *we both start laughing*

Sean~ and yet another great display of your superior maturity. I'm writing that down for my therapist.

Me~ um. You don't have a therapist.

Sean~ no. But by the time I do, I'm going to be able to hand him a notebook and say 'here's my life. read it and weep. I know I did.'"


So I got to thinking about how much I talk about Sean on this blog. Poor kid, it’s the curse of being the one who still lives at home and spends the most time with me. Honestly, I don’t have a favorite. I love each and every one of my brood unconditionally and I love them for their uniqueness. And if I’d started this blog last year, Lu (Mo) probably would have been the one who figured the most prominently, simply because I probably spent the most time with her. It seems to me that every single relationship we have with anyone is a constant changing, evolving, growing or dying thing. And to celebrate my complete and utter adoration of my children…I’m going to write about them. Hopefully, it won’t turn into one of those boastful “mommy blogs”, but I am sorta biased you know. So I’m starting with Sean since he’s the one you probably know the most about anyway. And I’m calling it “The Disco Chronicles” and he’s going to kill me…

Sean was the last biological addition to our brood and like both his siblings, he was a happy accident. Well, depending on who you asked. Hubby did not want to have anymore children and was not pleased to find we were expecting another one. I, however had always wanted a large family and was quite happy to add to it. It caused some horrible friction right up until my six month. That was when we got CJ’s autism diagnosis and then we both just spent the rest of the pregnancy trying not to worry about the developing baby. Sean was a huge baby. By the time I was sixth months along, people were asking if I was having twins. This made me cranky. It also happened to be the summer of 1993, and if you’re from around here you’ll remember that this was a horrible flood year. Now, we were living in Quincy at the time, which sits right on the Mississippi, but most of the town is on the bluff and safe from flooding. We lived 17 blocks from the river and the first two blocks were flooded. You also had major trouble getting out of town, because there was water covering a lot of the roads and outlying areas. Luckily, my mom managed to make it to our house about 3 weeks before the birth. The airport she flew into didn’t want to let me go to the gate to get her (this was before 9/11 of course) because they were afraid I’d go into labor on their watch. Seriously, I was ginormously pregnant. The flood is important because it made it ungodly humid that summer, even worse than usual, which is pretty bad! I spent the last three weeks of my pregnancy sitting with my feet up in front of our window air conditioner and praying for labor. I actually went into labor about 3 ½ weeks before I was due, but my doctor was out of town so the covering doctor gave me drugs to stop the labor (I wanted to punch him). So about 4 days before my actual due date, I had my last doctor appt. I got into his office and told him that I was miserable. That some woman in the waiting room had stopped me and asked if I was having triplets. He asked if he needed to go out there. I asked why? And he replied that he was almost certain I’d hit the woman. He knows me so well. Actually, I threatened to shoot him if he didn’t induce me soon because I was done. He smiled and said to meet him at the hospital the next morning at six.

I’ve always wondered why he said six, because his ass didn’t get there until nine. But he broke my water and then we were off. Actually, the whole labor took another 7 hours but that’s not too bad. I had told him the day before that it felt different. That I wasn’t sure exactly what it was but something was different. And that I had a lot of pain and pressure in my right ribs. He said the baby was probably facing the wrong way like the other two and no worries he would turn during labor. Well, the pain only intensified with the contractions. At shift change, an older nurse came in to take over and when she checked my cervix she got a funny look on her face. I thought “shit! I’m not dilated. I’m gonna be her forever!” Then she asked “has anyone checked to be sure the baby’s head is down here?” and I said “um. Is that an issue?” and she left quickly. She came back with a portable x-ray machine and sure enough the little bugger was breech. Luckily, his butt was at the other end, and his feet were up near his head. The doctor assured me I could still deliver naturally. And so we did. And it hurt. A lot. But in the end it was only 8 pushes and 10 pounds of backwards baby popped out. No drugs of course. Why? Looking back now, I'd have to say I'm a glutton for freakin punsishment. Of course it nearly killed me. I hemorrhaged all night and had some emergency drugs and massive scar tissue that had to be removed at a later date. I guess in the old days I would have died. So, lucky for me, I live in the here and now! I was a total legend at the hospital. I can’t tell you how many nurses came by and asked to see my stitches and bruising. Yeah, that area got seen by more people than a porn stars that week. Funny how you lose all modesty after something like that.

Anyway, Sean was an awesome baby. Except for being hungry all the time. Because he was so huge. But he started sleeping through the night at like a month old. And he didn’t really cry a whole lot. He was the easiest baby of the three. The pediatrician said I deserved a good one. Too true! He learned to walk at 10 months. I don’t know whether it was all the time he spent in the “johnny jump-up” or all the time he spent chasing his siblings when he was in his walker, but he learned fast. And he quickly became Mo’s partner in crime.

Well, I’ll stop there. Tomorrow I’ll get into his terrible toddler years and the discovery of his genius. I hope no one’s bored. Just wait til tomorrow when we get into the development of his seriously quirky personality. And I’m sorry to any guys who hate birth stories. I tried to be clean and not gory. Promise…I’m done with the girl stuff part. Lol.

Missing those baby years,
♥Spot