An unfortunate and accidental introduction to jalapenos

We tell Elias all the time to not put things in his mouth without asking us first. For one, he's allergic to just about everything so we don't want him to eat something that will cause a reaction. But of course there's the other logical reason that some things are just not good for him to eat. (Like my secret stash of chocolate chip cookies for example).

We were in the middle of preparing dinner the other night when Elias suddenly started screaming. I looked and his hand was grasping his mouth and tears were pouring out of his eyes. On the counter right above his head was a cutting board with remnants of jalapeno that Chase had been cutting up for salsa. Uh-oh.

We felt so bad for the little guy. We tried everything we could think of to help him, but as everyone knows, relief is only temporary when your lips are on fire from jalepeno.

Finally I started taking pictures of him to distract him and then let him see his picture in the camera like he loves to do. As pitiful as the pictures are, it actually helped to distract him for a while.

In the end Chase gave him a spoonful of sugar and that seemed to do the trick.

I'm sorry he had to learn this lesson the hard way! But now we have some great documentation of his first encounter with an unfriendly little pepper.

(I will add here that I am not being calloused and laughing at my child's pain. I was extremely compassionate and kind at the time. But to be honest, it was just a little funny at the same time. Elias' facial expressions are pretty dramatic but I promise you he wasn't really crying that hard the whole time, but the spice sure did make his eyes water!)

And so I will now share the pics to the masses.