Chapter 1.5 | Rules for this challenge | Chapter 1.7

Generation One: Black

Appearance: Black hair, siren-like clothing style
Traits: Evil, Non Committal, Kleptomaniac
Aspiration: Renaissance Sim
Occupation: Collector/Random careers of choice
House Goal: 10,000 worth

Messy Days

I start this journal entry off with good news. The town has brought in a restaurant! Instead of two beaches and a Bar, now we have a place to go on dates or family outings without having to take the bus to the city - which very few islanders are willing to do, including us.

Also, I had to expand the bathroom to allow for Austen to get his first bath. Showering outside just isn't feasible for a toddler, and it hasn't rained in a while, either... so a bathtub was a necessary addition to the house, for all of us. I couldn't wait to take my first HOT bath in my life. Since we had, you know, actual plumbing - that I hadn't had while growing up.

Rangi was the first one to use it, however, and Austen, little fish man as he is, had a blast in the water, splashing and playing with the bubbles, and generally soaking poor Rangi. (Who didn't REALLY mind, he just tried to act like he did.)

Right after his bath, however, he escaped Rangi's attempts to dry and dress him.. and ended up running past me to the great outdoors in his all-together. Laughing, I chased our little wild child down and returned him to Rangi.

Taking time for ourselves is hard when there's an active toddler in the house.. but sometimes you do what you have to. Messes can be cleaned up easily enough. (At least the indoor ones!)

The next morning .. is harvest fest. And of course, the gnomes invade. Eager to get some new seeds for my garden, I quickly appease one gnome, and send Rangi to appease another.

That didn't work so well, though, and he ended up begging for forgiveness.

Luckily, said gnome finally relented, and we started getting a million packets of seeds. All over the house.

Which meant we had to watch our wild child, Austen, extra closely, just in case he decided to try those seed packets as food. (He didn't.. but you just never know with toddlers!) He was, apparently, too busy banging pots and pans and trying to give everyone a headache.

The gnomes cheered me on while playing chess.. and I started noticing a peculiar, but familiar pain. We quickly called my mother, who swam over from the main islands to watch Austen, and off we went by bus to the hospital.

I hoped my pink booties were a good sign. This time the doctor seemed more competent.. thankfully. At least my heart didn't end up where it didn't belong. The procedure went smoothly, though, and practically before I knew it..

I had a daughter! Meet baby Kimber. Not Kimberly. Just Kimber. She's utterly adorable, and such a sweet baby, just like Austen was. She slept most the way home on the bus, curled up in my arms. It was so very cute.

Upon getting home and taking care of the baby, I decided I needed to get back to working on my Charisma, which was falling behind my other skills for Renaissance Sim. I knew I needed to switch jobs soon, but part of me was going to miss the nice paycheck I got for being an astronaut in training. That.. and I was SO close to that promotion to full astronaut. I just wanted that one trip into space... then I could move on.

We discovered today that making messes really helps with the imagination skill, so we let him make as many messes as he wanted. There's enough time to teach him responsibility and not making them when he grows up.

... And let me tell you, there were a LOT of messes. Big ones, little ones, ones in the front of the house, some by the garden.. The worst part was getting the paint, flour and cocoa powder out of the volcanic dirt. But I digress.

My garden is coming along nicely, and my skill there keeps slowly improving. I now have some flowers growing in addition to the island fruits and vegetables. If nothing else, the flowers sell very nice at market, and we can always use a little bit extra cash. Raising two kids isn't cheap.

And in case you're wondering, I still LOVE being a mermaid. Although the silly need to flap my arms and sound like a dolphin sometimes gets me weird looks. I can't help it.

We have been very lucky with Kimber, though, she's been so easy to take care of, you hardly notice she's there. It helps that Rangi has turned out to be such an awesome dad, taking care of her a lot of the time to take the burden of it off of me.

Two kids.. is still exhausting, though. And sometimes, I pay the price of pushing myself a little too hard. I just have so many goals, it's sometimes hard to know when to stop. Until my body simply says it can do no more. Then, I have to stop whether I like it or not.

Then, the day was over. And the whole family asleep. At least for a little while. But I'll take what I can get when it comes to sleep (as most parents will tell you) .. and we'll see you in the morning.

Chapter 1.5 | Rules for this challenge | Chapter 1.7