My daydream

Round 17: Days 81-85

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Narrated by Araminta Romilly

On a whim, Henry bought a lottery ticket and ended up winning $1000! We really need that cash so we put most of it into our mortgage. We had a little left over so we decided to treat ourselves to a night out at Orchard.



Once we got the menus, we realised that Orchard was much more expensive than we'd realised. I felt like everyone was looking at us, knowing we couldn't really afford to eat here.

When the check came, we really knew this place was too expensive, so we decided to try and skip out on the bill. The hostess ran after us but she wasn't quite fast enough.

We ducked behind some trees and waited for her to go back inside the restaurant. Once it was all over, we realised it was pretty funny.

And so ended our night on the town.

I'm on maternity leave from work now that I've entered my second trimester, so I'm spending lots of time at home with Ione. It's usually a luxury that I can't afford, so it's nice getting paid for staying home.

Henry thinks he's finally created a dish good enough to enter a cooking contest - crepes suzette! He had to search around a bit for the address of the hobby club but he's found it now and is entered into their next contest.

He felt somewhat defeated before it even started, when all the other contestants entered elaborate lobster dishes. Maybe he'd get some points for originality?

Nope. There's just no beating a classic like lobster thermidor, apparently. We could have used that $500 but Henry's going to try again another time.

Ione just turned 5 and I think we were lucky enough to be able to afford to buy her a new bed. The poor kid has no toys in her room, just her toddler toys that she's outgrown.

I guess normally, we could have sold her crib and changing table but we'd soon be needing those again!

Luckily, everything was gender-neutral. Finn might not have appreciated an all-pink room once he was old enough to actually notice!

With a new baby in the house, family dinners like this became somewhat of a rarity. Often Finn would cry just as soon as I sat down and I'd have to go and attend to him.

He's just adorable enough for me to put up with it though!

Once he was a toddler, he became even more adorable. I wonder if being out of nappies had anything to do with it.
We're still working on the walking thing though. That's a little trickier!

After not seeing each other in ages, I invited my best friend Magdalena over for dinner the other night. When she finished college and moved back to Sullivan, I thought we'd get to see each other all the time but motherhood takes up much more of our time than either of us expected!

Anyway, we all shared a meal together and talked about old times. Magdalena couldn't resist getting a little dig in at Henry about his loss in the cooking contest but he took it in his stride!

It was the first time Magdalena had seen Ione since she was a baby but Ione just chatted away like they'd known each other for ages! Magdalena is like family to me, so that makes me happy.

We finished the evening with a promise to do this much more often than we had done in the past.

Notes:

• I decided to roll an ROS with this family and I got "Skip out on the bill". I've tried it only twice before and failed both times, so I was determined to succeed this time. You really do have to direct their every move because Sims are idiots and they'll walk right past the hosts if you just send them outside. Henry and Araminta snuck right around the back and the host still spotted them! She was just a second too slow.
• The Romillies have finally paid off their debt! Only to have it all taken away from them in taxes! I'm a cruel mistress.
• Finn is...interesting looking. He looks a lot like Ione did pre-surgery but I didn't surgery him (me speak English goodly!) because it doesn't look as bad on boys. He looks a lot cuter when he's moving around though. He doesn't photograph well!