Zaino Family Blog: Toughen up mom!

Ah, finally J.R. is healthy and back to his normal self, it only took 2 weeks! I took two full days off work to care for my little guy and besides the fact he was sick I loved staying home with J.R. I told Tony I wished I was a stay at home mom and he replied, "honey, it was two days, I know you and you would go crazy after two weeks of staying home." I feel like we've been pretty fortunate when it comes to J.R getting sick. In his almost 4 years of life he's had the flu twice, croup once and a few viruses here and there from school. Typically, when he gets sick, I never worry because from past experience he'll be over it in 24 hours. Well, not this time! J.R. got a virus that turned into the worse chronic cough you have ever heard in your life. This poor little guy was in the er twice and the doctor's office three times in one week. He winced in pain after days of coughing. His little ribs hurt and his head hurt from coughing so hard for so long. I remember the night of Tuesday November 13th my little guy didn't know what to do with himself he was in so much pain. He just cried and cried there was nothing I could do to sooth him or make him feel better. I remember praying, please take this away from J.R. and give it to me, please. I wanted to crawl right out of my skin, this was the first time since I had J.R. that I didn't know what to do. Then I thought, what the heck am I complaining about, my little boy has a bad cough and I'm reacting this way when there are mother's out there that have terminally ill children. Any of those mothers would feel like they hit the lottery if their child had a bad cough. I told myself to stop being a pussy and toughen up and feel fortunate the J.R. will get better and not worse, feel fortunate that my child will live and is not terminal with a disease or disabled. Be thankful for my life and family.

Here's J.R. mid cough during going to the doctor.

This day was the first day he wasn't feeling good. I knew something was wrong when he just wanted to lay in bed all day and cuddle.

Another bad night, poor guy was up almost the entire night.

Ah, starting to feel better!

This past Monday morning was a rough morning. I was trying to get J.R. to school and work was blowing up in my face, which is typical after a holiday. Headquarters is on east coast time so things start to rock n' roll at 5am our time. Nothing was going right and I was very frustrated. As I was putting him in his car seat he looks at me with those big blue eyes and said, "Mom are you mad at me?" Whoa, talk about slap in the face. I told him, "no honey, I'm not mad at you I'm just mad at work, it's very frustrating right now. I wish I could just stay home with you today and not go to work." J.R. replied, "Oh no mom, you have to go to work so you can buy things for yourself." I chuckled and said, " you mean, so I can buy things for you." J.R. said, "no so you can buy things for you and daddy". Sometimes I make life way too complicated when it doesn't have to be and I had to thank J.R. for pointing that out to me that morning, I really needed a reality check!

We headed to Arizona for Thanksgiving the Tuesday before to be with my grandpa. My uncle went down a few weeks before to help my grandpa since he's been having back problems. My uncle is still down there and we hope his back gets taken care of this week with a nerve blocker. We're praying he doesn't have to have surgery. I've never seen my grandpa in so much pain before, it's pretty scary. He's always been a tough guy, going to work no matter how he felt. I was just glad we could be down there and lift his spirits with J.R. for a few days. Our family is so different with my grandma gone. The house smells different, there's a different aura there now. This is the second Thanksgiving without her and our family will be forever changed.

J.R. with his POWER RANGERS headphones!

J.R. got plastic little swords with his drink at the airport. He talked our waitress out of 5 little swords. We had sword fights all the way from Vegas to Tucson.

This kid LOVES Jenga. The changed up the game and built "windows" 8 stories tall!

Playing Jenga, he's really good. Honestly we don't let him win, he'll beat us sometimes.

J.R. watching a football game before bedtime. My grandpa has his "coke bottle" glasses on. When I was little I always loved seeing his "coke bottle" glasses.