No! I don't want anymore kids.

I'm not saying it's forever.
I just don't want another one.
I don't think I ever will, but you never say never.

Autumn is cute. She's beautiful, actually. She's a big ball of freakin' sunshine... to everyone else. She's always happy (unless she's mad) and she's very quirky. I'll be honest, my kid is magnetic. People love to be around her. They spend some time with her and then they ask "Are you having anymore?"

I laugh. The biggest, sarcastic, mean laugh that I can muster, and respond "Are you kidding me? Never. Nope. Heeellllll no."

I always get the "look" (you know that "you make adorable babies please make more" look) and they proceed to tell me WHY I need another kid:

1. "But she's sooooo cute" (...and evil)
2. "She needs a sibling, she'll get lonely." (...or get less attention)
3.  "You're going to miss her being a baby." (...really? I was dying for the day she could walk while holding my hand so I wouldn't have to carry her while I did everything)
4. "You need a boy!" (psssh. Like I have the money for genetic modification to make this happen.)
... and the oddest one I've heard:
5. "But I had a dream you had 4 kids!" (because I should just hop on board to make your premonition come true, right?)

Although all of these are very good reasons (sarcasm)  to have another child, here are my serious (kinda) reasons as to why I don't want to and probably won't do it again:

1. Pregnancy sucks. It sucks ass. Some women are super cute, bubbly, and glowing.... not me. I hated everything about it. I didn't look pregnant til, like, 3 days before my due date. So I just looked like a really whiney fat person the whole time. Also, the pain from the first trimester was God awful. I would complain to the doctor and he would tell me it's my uterus growing. Well, your uterus growing is like cramps on 'roids and it sucks. Also, I carried so low the whole time that by 6 months, even though I didn't look pregnant, I felt very pregnant and very heavy. This caused tremendous cramps, which the doctor told me was just my ligaments stretching. All of this body stretching and growing sucks. Not fun. Also the ultrasounds... yeah those suck too. You know why? Because you're bladder is full with a million ounces of water and you have to hold it while waiting for the xray tech to be ready, and of course, the little baby in your uterus is jumping on it the whole time. Then, the doctor pushes and shoves on your bladder region. I peed a little one time. It was equal amounts of embarassing and gross.

2. My labor still traumatizes me and my birth still causes pain. I went into labor on the 27th of July. I started feeling the pain on the night of the 26th, but I was ready to go to the hospital on the 27th. I got to the hospital and my water broke. They put me in a room and convinced me to get an epidural. I swear to you, every intention I had was a natural birth with NO epidural. However, they told me I'd be too tired to push since I was up all night in pain. So, exhausted I got the epdirual early in the day. The epidural stopped my contractions. The doctor didn't want to induce them because "there were too many women in labor and no on-call delivery doctors." The epdirual freaked me out and I had them turn it off. I didn't like the feeling of not feeling. So basically, I got the epidural, it stopped my labor, and I hated the way it felt so I turned it off and went back to feeling pain. For nothing. Then, I fell asleep in between contractions. The next morning, the doctor says "ok! we have more staff!" and gives me petocin to start my contractions again. I start contracting. I start pushing. I push for almost 8 hours on and off. NO baby. While she was sitting in a dry womb that, at one point, was pushing her out, and then, wasn't pushing her out. This caused her to turn "sunny side up." Apparently, babies only come out face down, which was news to me. I kept trying to push and her heart rate dropped so they had to whisk me off to emergency c-section. Horrifying. I couldn't hold her. I couldn't be with her. I had to just lie there, while hearing the doctor tell me he "couldn't stop the bleeding." Dead. I'm pretty sure at some point I left my body.

3. I can't handle more than one Autumn. Or one angel child plus Autumn. I actually can't even deal with Autumn, some days. There are moms out there who are able to spread themselves equally to each child, whereas I can't even spread my love to anyone besides her. Two days after she was born I just looked at her dad and told him that I really didn't think I had enough love in me to love anyone else besides her, including him. Also, I don't have the patience for anything besides her. I mean I barely have the patience for her... so.... yeah. No more kids, please. I would probably have a complete melt down. I have pretty bad anxiety and I sometimes feel myself seperating from sanity as it is. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be nice to bring another kid into this. She's hyper and loud, and makes me batty. I think if my next child was a saint, they'd be ignored while I tended to Autumn's antics or if they were just as "eccentric" as Autumn, I'd die.

4. It's not financially responsible. I can make it on my own but I have a 2002 car and I'm living in a *decent* part of town in a ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT. By *decent* I mean I don't technically live in the hood, I like to consider it "historical" however, my mom saw my apartment and said "Brittany! If I would've seen this before you moved I would have told you not to move." Also, she will text me when she hears "booms" from my Grandma's house who lives a few blocks away. But really, it's not that bad. We have really nice neighbors who keep an eye on our place and I haven't seen any real crime besides bums loitering by the no loitering sign. Right now, Autumn does have everything she could ever want and more. Plus, I'm able to pay my bills without things getting shut off and such. However, not having to pay for baby food, possibly formula, diapers, and wipes is such a relief. I can't imagine doing it all over again. 

6. I really am not a huge fan of kids. I love my kid, because, you know, she's cool. However, she's very different from other kids. What if I have another kid and they're a boring or annoying kid?! I mean, I wouldn't be mean, and I would still love them, but my kid is really awesome! She does funny stuff and has such a crazy personality. Other kids are just... kids. Some may be cute, and some may be funny, but Autumn is a nutcase, and I love her that way. The more kids I have means more friends for them when they get older... more school functions.... more birtday parties... NO! No more kids. I seriously was an outcast for so much of my elementary years because I just really didn't get along with kids. 



Lately, Autumn has been requesting a new baby sister of me, and  I just can't.
Although when she started asking two weeks ago, I thought it was cute... at first.
Then I saw her put her baby doll in a plastic bag and shove it in a drawer, telling it to "stop crying" and my mind returned to "Hell no."

Concerned Parent.

Yesterday evening when I was parking I saw that Terrance was outside with Autumn and the neighbor kids whom are brother and sister. They are 4 years old and 6 years old, and always playing out side on their own. As I was walking up I asked Autumn if she wanted to go inside and make a cake. The 6 year old girl exclaimed "I want to help, too!" and so did her little brother. I told them they could help so long as they asked their momma.

They ran inside, their mother had said yes and I verified this by making sure she saw them come in and by waving at her from the back door. We made the cake (well, I did, they were distracted by Autumn's mountains of toys) and while we waited for it to bake we did some crafts. I took some construction paper to make "books" and had the kids decorate their own books with markers, ribbon, other paper, crayons, and lots of tape. When the cake was done and cooled, I frosted it and cut them each a slice.

After we cut the cake and ate, I told the kids we had to leave to run an errand so I packaged up some cake in a throw away plastic container and sent them through the back door and watched them walk onto their steps. That's when the 4 year old stuck his head back outside and said "My mom and dad are not here."

I was baffled. The parents had left their two young children at my house without telling me? Why would they do that? I've only lived by them for two months, and rarely have spoken to the parents besides a quick "Hello" in passing. I almost didn't believe the 4 year old so I walked up to their door and yelled a little "yoo-hoo" to see if anyone was inside. Then, as I'm starting to tell the kids to head back to my place while we wait for their parents they pull up behind me and park.

They were in my house for at least an hour and a half. They are 4 and 6. They do not know me well. They never told me they were leaving. I don't care how long they were gone for, it's rude to leave your kids at some one's house and not tell them you're leaving. Especially at 8pm at night when it's usually time to get things ready for bed. However, them being rude is not my concern. They literally left two young children at a strangers house for an extended period of time and LEFT their house in their CAR. WHAT?!

Even if they "trusted" me, as a stranger, what if I had let them run home without checking and something happened to them there?

She's 6. and He's 4. We don't live in a really great neighborhood. We live close to downtown, which is both beautiful and scary. It's historical yet warn, and it's definitely got a very wide range of individuals who live in the area. It's scary, I would never want to leave my children alone. Especially because of the parking situation, it's easy to tell when your car is missing.

Now I'm concerned about letting them come inside to play with Autumn again. How would I even confront them on this matter? I did state to her "Oh wow, I didn't even know you left, I was too worried to leave them here alone so I was going to bring them back to my house until you got back." to which she replied "Oh they would've been fine. She knows how to lock the door."

Any advice?

Homemade Playdough

Autumn and I made playdough about a month ago, and she's still sooooo proud of it. I have this photo of her on the memory cork board in the kitchen and everytime she see's it she says: "Remember when I was little and made playdough?" Apparently, a month ago she was "little."

I actually just had to throw it out because since they sat for a few weeks the liquid started to seperate from it and looked really gross.

However, after three failed attempts this is the recipe/and how-to that I used, mixing the instructions from a couple of different pinterest sources.

This is the recipe that I used:

For each color I used this amount:
2 cups flour
2 cups warm water
1 cup salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Food coloring

*Oh and glitter. We definately mixed in glitter to make them "sparkerlee."

1. I started by having Autumn pour the warm water and vergetable oil together in an already warmed up pot. Warm pot, NOT hot. I also like to add the food coloring drops in now, because it mixes easier.
2. Then start to slowly mix the salt and flower in. Also- add glitter if you want.
3. Keep stirring until it begins to feel like playdough.
4. Roll into a ball and let cool. It will be hot at first, so be careful with the little hands.

We made all sorts of colors and Autumn played for hours. When we were done we put it in reuseable plastic containers, the type that you use for leftover food.

She loved it and played with it everyday until she decided the carpet needed "clothes" and she rubbed blue playdough into the carpet. Then it went in the closet and stayed there while it seperated.

So... two weeks of playing with it and it still was staying together well. Shelf life? Not so long.

Hope you have fun!
-Brittany

Hello there, stranger!

Hello there!

I'm back to blogging again, after a year long hiatus. 

I was going through some life changes, and now that I have become more stable (financially, mentally, and physically) I have returned to the wonderful world of blogspot! I've missed sharing the stories of my growing toddler, and I've very much missed the conversations I had with other mommas. Autumn is two and a half now, and very much so going on twenty one years old. I would have never imagined her being this goofy nor this mature. She suprises most people when they meet her because she acts so mature. Autumn is determined to be the leader of every situation- including our living situation. 

Sometimes I get so exhausted because she just DOES NOT hear me. Well... she hears me... she just pretends not to. I won't lie, I have thrown my hands up and cried face down on the couch while she sat in time out. However, I have to remember how I have chosen to raise her. I have chosen to raise her to have nothing but confidence in what she wants and who she is. So when you meet Autumn, just know that you are meeting 100% Grade A Autumn, because she chooses what she wants to do, what she wants to say, and how she wants to go about her day. She is fearless. She has no fear of anything- except fish tanks (which I'll have to discuss another time.) I admire her fearlessness but it's getting to the point where I look at her and think "Hmm... maybe just a little bit of fear may be good for her." 

Autumn will face many challenges in her life. Her mixture of ethnicity paired with the fact that she is female will present hurdles, wether she notices or not. I want her to be confident in everything that she does and everything that she is. She loves her big curly hair, and that makes me smile. She thinks she's "the most beautiful girl in the world" because her daddy says so. She thinks she's the oldest and wisest kid on the play ground, when actually she's the youngest and most petite. I am very proud of this. I am happy that she is so independent and proud of who she is, and I just hope this continues. And I hope that I have the energy to deal with it.

At the end of the day, my kid is amazing. Everyone feels that way about their child, don't they? I feel like everyone should hear about the things Autumn says or does, because it's hillarious. So I've decided to share my life with you all as readers, and I hope you enjoy reading!


Have a great day y'all!
-Brittany