Sick Babies

Sigh! Sick babies are no fun. What causes a mild runny nose in a 3.5 year old progresses to seriously concerning in a one year old. Sedona started out with a runny nose, and by bedtime (and she was overly tired to begin with since we weren't able to convince her to take an afternoon nap), she was miserable, crying and so stuffed up she couldn't breathe while nursing or sucking on her pacifier. For a little while there she just got worse and worse and I was making the "if we go to the ER tonight..." plan in the back of my mind. She calmed down and seems better now, but she's been up 7 times in the last 2.5 hours, so it'll be a fun night. I'm thinking the start of an ear infection, or maybe the congestion is just bothering all those teeth she has sitting there waiting to break through. Whenever they're all stuffy and having trouble breathing, it's safe to assume mom and dad won't be getting any good sleep though. Even if she manages to rest, we'll be worrying about her all night.

Earlier in the day, before she was so sick, she was doing some serious work on walking. She now stands up and lets go and just stands there doing whatever. If you turn on music, she dances. If you try to get her to come to you, she laughs, sits down, and crawls. And we (oh so lovingly) call her chicken ;-) Sierra gets mad and says she is a baby, not a chicken.

Money saving tip of the day......got some split chicken breasts for $1/lb a while back (they've been in the freezer). Thawed them out today and cut the breasts off (woo hoo, $1/lb boneless, skinless chicken breast for 5 minutes worth of work) and cut them into chunks and made chicken nuggets. The rib meat and all that got thrown in a pot and boiled, then I pulled the meat off and put it in two family sized chicken pot pies. Yummy yummy food in the freezer :-)

Oh, and we used our new pressure canner friday night. We always have this problem with making our salsa too mild. Never fear, we finally got it "right"!! Just some background, we eat some pretty spicy food. When we cook for other people, we have to tone down the spiciness. When we make thai food at home, we do not shy away from the red curry paste. So, I dipped a spoon in the salsa (didn't scoop, just dipped) and touched it to my tongue, and my tongue was so much on fire that I refused to put it back in my mouth. I literally wiped the stuff off my tongue. Apparently those Ring-O-Fire chilies we planted this year really do have quite a bit more heat than seranos. This is even hotter than the year we added in habaneros. Anyways, good salsa, but I wouldn't recommend eating spoonfuls of it!