Reason # 342 not to have children

Jb and I have a sort of running joke between us. Whenever we see a child do something annoying, gross, frustrating, ridiculous, etc. we quickly give it a random number. For example, JB sees a kid pick his nose and eat it and turns to me and says, "reason #469 not to have children."

Now, obviously, as evidenced from the large amounts of money, tears, and effort we have put into having children, everyone reading this blog knows that we want to have children probably more than anything. However, we have also learned that you have to be able to make jokes and poke fun at your own problems. We have also really made it a point to celebrate our family of two.

Side note: I hate when people ask when we plan to start our family as we consider ourselves already a family even if we are a small family. Don't ever ask someone that. What constitutes a family? 2.2 children and a dog? Sorry. Now stepping off my soap box.

So anyways, onto our list (which actually doesn't exist in a concrete sense).

One of the ways we have poked fun at our situation and also reminded ourselves of all the problems we are avoiding by not having children is to point out all the things that would not be fun about having a child. A really dirty diaper? #421. The time one of the kids in our Sunday school class told a story about her mother in a hot tub with a priest? #49. Throw-up? #12.

Today I witnessed reason #342 -- child throws a temper tantrum in the middle of a rain storm while mother carries three bags of groceries. I am not making this up. On my way home from work, a woman walked out of the tiny grocer next to my house with 3 plastic bags in her right hand. In her left hand was the hand of a two-year-old little girl, complete with yellow rain slicker and galoshes.

They walked along with no apparent distress brewing. Then, all of a sudden, for what appeared to be no reason at all, the toddler stopped walking and SAT DOWN! The mother tried to pull her by the arm to get her to stand up but to no avail. The little girl continued to sit, in the rain, crying.

Now I am sure there was a reason in the two-year-old's mind, and maybe she even conveyed that to the mother for her refusal to walk another step. However, I am also pretty sure that this reason was not a very good one. I also really felt for the poor mother. It was raining. She had her hands filled with groceries, and now she had a toddler who refused to go home!

The solution? Manage to pick up the screaming child while holding her bags of groceries and getting soaken wet.

Are there any arguments that this makes the list? Oh, and we don't rank these items as it would be too subjective. If we did, I'm sure this event would at least cut into the top 100.

If you feel that you have an item that must be included, be sure to let me know. We'll consider every request for addition to our list. We apologize we cannot respond to each request personally.