Pookie, Ray Ray & Bonquisha Need to Stop Having Babies

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This past my weekend my cousin invited my kids & myself to attend her daughter’s 6th birthday party.  I accepted the invitation because my cousin’s kids and my kids don’t know each other and that’s mainly due to the fact that for almost the last 20 years or so I wasn’t living in Florida.  My kids were born in Georgia and last year after I decided to move back down to Florida.  So, I’m back down here surrounded by family who have only seen pics of my kids on social media for the most part are now having an opportunity to meet them in addition to me meeting relatives I don’t know, like my cousin’s kids.  So like I said, I accepted the invitation and proceeded to take my kids by her residence.  Now other than posts on Facebook, I haven’t seen my cousin face to face since I moved back down to Florida, so I had no idea as to where she lived.  She texts me her address and we pull up to the spot.  The spot we pulled up to was deep off in the hood and she stays in some rundown looking apartment complex.  No biggie…it is what it is.  This particular complex she lives in has 2 sets of buildings.  Each building has a bottom floor and a top floor.  My cousin stays on the top floor right next to the steps.  In order to get to her floor you have to walk up about 20-25 concrete steps that just go straight up, meaning the steps are not curving.  So if you walked out her apartment, turned right, the steps are right there and you would have to walk down about 20-25 steps then you’ll at the bottom right where the parking lot is.  Once you are at the top of the steps to where her apartment is, it is this long concrete walkway to get to the other apartments that runs the entire length of the building to where it meets another set of 20-25 concrete steps leading down.  On the back end of the building, it’s the same set up.  Basically, if you were to walk into her apartment and go out the back door you would be on the opposite side of the building with this long concrete landing on the back end running the entire length of the building with each end having its own set of 20-25 steps.  I’m hope you all can somewhat see this visual and the reason why I’m describing this to you is because this concrete landing and these steps are central to this story.  

As I pull up to my cousins spot, it’s a bunch of random kids outside playing in the parking lot and my cousin has some music booming from her apartment complex.  Now keep in mind, I’m here for a 6 year old girl’s birthday party but my cousin has the latest unedited mumble trap music blaring for everybody in the complex to hear plus the occasional breeze of the wind sent some smells of the sticky icky up my nose…but that part of the story is neither here nor there.  So after the kids move out of the way, I park my car.  My 2 boys get out.  I have a 12 year old and a 3 year old.  My 3 year old immediately proceeds to run and play with the other kids who are playing on some kiddie basketball hoop.  I tell my oldest son to keep an eye on his brother.  I walk up the flight of steps to my cousin’s apartment to say what’s up.  It’s mostly a bunch of women in there I don’t know.  I introduce myself to everybody, say hi, run into her kitchen to grab a bottle of water and come back out to the concrete landing where I post up on the rail to watch my kids and the other kids below in the parking lot playing around.

As I’m up there mostly trying to keep an eye on my 3 year old because this boy just likes to take off and run, I see my 3 year old running around in circles with this other kid who looks to be about 18-24 months old doing the toddler thing.  At one point while I’m on the landing, my son and the other toddler go out of my view to where they are directly up under the concrete landing I’m standing on to where they are standing in front of some of the other tenants’ apartments on the bottom floor.  I can still see my oldest son, so I ask him where is his brother and he points and says, “He’s right here”.  Cool.  Then seconds later, my 3 year old comes back into my line of sight and I commence to chilling on the landing waiting for the food to finish cooking and saying hi to other people who are showing up.  The whole time I’m chilling on the landing, I don’t see that other toddler my son was running around in circles with and it just never crossed my mind as to where did he go.  I just assumed he was playing with some other kids or maybe his parent had scooped him up or whatever, I don’t know. 

Anyways, as I’m on the landing in front of my cousin’s apartment, I looked to my left which is the opposite end of the building from where my cousin lives and guess what I see?  I see that same toddler walking down the concrete landing towards me all by himself.  At first I’m like…hold up…did this toddler just climb up 25 steps by himself?  At any second I was expecting an adult to pop up from the flight of steps, but nope.  So the toddler starts walking the length of the landing towards me.  At this point I’m thinking that out of all of these random women that I don’t know, this toddler has to belong to one of these women.  The toddler walks past me and goes into my cousins apartment.  A few moments later he comes out.  Once again I find myself trying to figure out exactly whose kids is this.  Now the toddler is staring at me and I’m looking back at him.  As he’s staring at me, he’s steadily walking towards the flight of steps that are next to my cousin’s apartment.  Being hyperaware of the situation, I grab the toddler’s arm because in about 3 or 4 more steps he would have been tumbling straight down those concrete steps.  I safely walk the kid down the steps and as I get to the bottom landing, I’m looking around trying to figure out who does this kid belong to.  Then out of nowhere, this dude who lives in the apartment just below my cousin (and just so happens to look like the rapper Freddie Gibbs by the way) comes outside and he’s looking at the kid as I’m holding the kid’s hand because now we are in the parking lot and there is a car trying to leave.  So I ask the dude if this is his kid, he says yeah.  Then takes the kid and goes back into his apartment.

At this point, I’m rather relieved that I found the parent or guardian of this kid, so now I can get back to the business of keeping an eye on my 3 year old.  Time progresses and I’m not even thinking about this toddler anymore, mainly because I don’t see him, nor am I looking for him.  So about an hour rolls by and I’m downstairs chopping it up with my uncle and my aunt who are out there as we’re watching random kids at the party playing around.  We’re pretty much on the side of the building that’s facing the main road and guess who I see walking down a flight of steps on the back end of my cousin’s apartment complex?  That’s right, that random toddler.  He’s just literally walking down these steps holding onto the rail all by himself.  No dad in sight, no random mom or random other kid who may be related to this kid in sight.  Ironically, nobody appears to have noticed this kid except for me.  So I watch him come down the stairs thinking that there is an adult immediately behind or in the vicinity to come claim him.  I don’t see the dude, as a matter of fact, I take a few steps into the parking lot and I see that dude’s door is closed.  So I’m watching the kid and this time he starts walking towards the street.  The street was a cul-de-sac..but still.  This time, I walk over to get this kid and start walking him back towards the apartment where the dude lived.  As I’m walking him back, all of a sudden, the dude comes outside to retrieve his kid.  At this point I’m wondering if I should I say something to this dude, but then I remember that I’m in an area where I don’t know any of these people other than my cousin, uncle and aunt and from what I heard from my aunt, this particular apartment complex has a few d-boys who live and trap up out here.  At this point I just choose to hand the kid back over without saying anything because I don’t know if this kid’s dad (assuming that’s who he is) is one of these d-boys who make take offense to me telling him that he needs to watch his kid.  So I hand the kid over again.  Time moves on.  We eat some food, had some cake and everybody is chilling for a few minutes before it’s time to head on home.  I’m out there saying my goodbyes and rounding up my kids and guess who I see standing next the dumpster?  You guessed it, that toddler but this time the kid wasn’t alone.  A damn pitbull came from behind the dumpster right next to the kid.  Fortunately this pitbull appeared to have been tamed and then some random dude came out of nowhere to retrieve the dog.  The kid sees me in the parking lot and starts walking towards me.  At this point, I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is going on here with this kid.  The kid walks in my direction and then like clockwork, ole buddy emerges from the apartment to retrieve the kid.  I decided it was time for to go.  I didn’t know what was going on and I was not about to investigate.  So my kids and I bounced.

Anyways, for the past 2 days or so I’ve been thinking about this 18 month old toddler and how he was pretty much free to literally just roam around the apartment complex on his own unattended.  If somebody wanted to kidnap this kid, they could have easily done it because nobody other me was paying attention to this kid when he was outside.  I didn’t see one woman laying claim to him and the dude who did lay claim to him, this knee grow was just literally letting this toddler go outside and do his own thing to where this kid was walking up & down flights of stairs by himself and popping up from around the dumpster where a damn pitbull was in the vicinity.  I still can’t believe it.  So it begs the question, why are you knee grows who live in the projects having babies in the first damn place if you have no intentions of acting like a parent and monitoring the whereabouts and activities of your kids, especially toddlers who probably just learned how to walk a few months ago?  What parent in their right mind just lets a toddler roam around outside by himself unsupervised to where a complete stranger (such as myself) had to keep an eye on your kid for your child’s safety and welfare?  What kind of foolishness is this?  Remember, this wasn’t a 5, 6, or 7 year old kid.  This kid had to have been about 18 months old, no older than 2. But why are you broke dusty knee grows who live in these areas having kids if you have no plans of adequately taking care of your kids.  And yes I say “taking care of” because, maybe that kid has all of the things he needs to be a healthy baby on the inside of that apartment, I wouldn’t know considering I didn’t go up in that apartment.  Regardless of that, this same kid was literally just roaming around unattended walking up and down flights of stairs.  Can you imagine if this kid had of fell down the flight of stairs on the opposite end of the building where nobody was at?  Just imagine that.  Like I said, we’re talking about at least 25 concrete steps that lead into a concrete sidewalk.  I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here.  Some of you will say, “IT AIN’T NO SAFER IN THE BURBS!  KIDS ARE BEING ABUSED ALL THE TIME TIME!”  And yes, you are correct.  I’m not even disputing that.  Still, I don’t care about that aspect at this present moment.  I’m talking about these knee grows who live deep in the hood in these rinky dink project apartments who literally just let 18 month old kids roam about as they please, like this Freddie Gibbs looking dude whom I’m assuming is the father of this toddler.  

Listen, whether you live in the burbs or the projects or wherever, just stop having babies especially if you have no plans for properly taking care of these kids.  Just stop.  I don’t understand this obsession too many of you have with bringing life into this world that you obviously can’t afford to take care of or you don’t want to properly take care of.  Just stop.  How hard is it to not get pregnant these days?  Are you all creating kids as a badge of honor or creating these kids so that you can have a baby shower celebration or are you just creating these kids because you see them as fashion accessories when they are young?  Who the hell creates a baby with someone only to allow this baby to just roam around an apartment complex, up and down stairs, all up in the parking lot, next to the street, next to the dumpster where a pitbull is located?  Who does that?  Further, why in the hell was I the only adult at this party who decided to show to concern for this kid, because it wasn’t like nobody else saw this kid?  Everybody saw the toddler but for some reason, nobody found it problematic that an 18 month old baby was walking up and down a flight of stairs by himself or just hanging out in the parking lot unattended.  What the hell?

Anyways, I just wanted to share that with you all because I’m still sitting here thinking about this toddler wondering what he’s up to right now.  Is he going up and down those stairs again, is he chilling in the parking lot right now, is he next to the dumpster where that pitbull; what is he doing right now and is he safe?  Like I stated, this particular area isn’t the type of area where you can just run up and do random spot checks like that, but damn, I hope this kid’s mother is around because the dude I kept returning the toddler to (whom I’m assuming is the kid’s father), that knee grow is a HORRIBLE parent…HORRIBLE.  My goodness.  I just pray the mother is better but then again, if she chose this knee grow to have a kid with, I imagine she isn’t much different from him.