Slowly

Round 20: Winter 2011

last update/next update

Joseph Carmody is 76, Vivienne is 71, Betsy and Kimberly are both 40, Sarah is 6 and Susannah is 1.
(Leontine Kirby is 69 and Ethan Novak is 5)

Narrated by Betsy Carmody

On the day our daughter Susannah was due to arrive, I took a vacation day from work so I was there to see Sarah off to school. No goodbye, mind you. I don't know if she's annoyed at getting a baby sister or annoyed that Kimberly and I didn't let her stay home to meet her too.



The social worker from the adoption agency came around at about 10 o'clock. I'm sure she would have brought her right to the door but I couldn't wait, so I ran across the street to meet them.

I think you could almost believe Susannah was my biological daughter. She's got the same freckles that run so rampant in the Carmody family tree. There's blonde genes somewhere in there too, seeing my cousin Jesse is a blonde.

It's not snowing yet here but it is getting really cold and Susannah was in short sleeves with bare legs, so I took her up to the nursery for some play time straight away.

We know that Susannah ended up in the system because her parents died and not because of any sort of neglect but we don't know much else about her.

It's fun getting to know her so far. She has some odd habits, like crawling into the pet bed for a snooze.

Before having kids, I never pictured Mum as the doting grandmother type but that's what she's become. Susannah is her third grandchild (besides Sarah, she has Nathan). Anna is pregnant again, so there'll be yet another grandchild soon enough.

Mum's only fault, grandparent wise, is that she just cannot stand Sarah's video games and glares at her every time she tries to play them. Mum likes to read quietly in the living room and she hates it when Sarah gets on the Playstation.

I think Sarah's friend might be a bit of a Casanova when he grows up. Sarah has told me that he's quite popular with all the girls at school! I'll have to keep my eye on him when Sarah gets older.

My aunt Leontine has been spending a lot of time with us, since she was widowed this past autumn.

She still talks about my uncle Brandon a lot and it's making Mum start to worry about when she'll lose Dad. He's still very active - he exercises, he's still working at the diner - but they've been together so long that I'm not sure how she'll cope when he's gone.

Any worries we had about Sarah and Susannah have completely dissipated. Sarah's school had a snow day recently and all Sarah wanted to do was play with Susannah all day. She adores her!

Susannah absolutely idolises her too. She was drawing at her little activity table but once Sarah sat down and started playing with the blocks, she wanted to do that too!

Notes:

• Betsy and Sarah both have panels filled with wants to interact with Susannah. Kimberly though? Hardly any at all, which is why she's mostly not in this update. Any pics I added of her would have been just padding. It's strange because her primary aspiration is Family, while Betsy only has it as her secondary.
• I was torn on whether to put Susannah in the family portrait, seeing I think it's probably a little strange to see this seemingly random child suddenly added to the family when you start reading! I decided to include her anyway and hope the fact that it was explained straight away made it less jarring for you all.
• Two short ones today, which was a nice break for me! I have Lake's family coming up soon and I have a feeling that might be a long one.