Forever

Round 21: Autumn 2014

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Charlton and Aphrodite Nihill are both 69, James Novak is 39, Madelyn is 34, Aaron is 11 and Ethan is 8.
(Zelda is 39 and Troy is 11)

Narrated by Madelyn Novak

Zelda finally had a couple of hours away from her kids to come and see me. Despite how busy she is these days (after an adoption and a surprise pregnancy), she just loves having a big family.


She's really got me thinking now! I never really pictured myself as having a whole tribe of children but the more I think about it, the more I think I might want to adopt a third. I just don't know what James will think of that, seeing we had agreed to stop at two children.

I figured it couldn't hurt to talk it over. James likes me to listen to him practising his presentations for work, so I waited for him to finish before I brought it up.

I told him how I still felt like there was another member of our family out there somewhere and that I was happy now but that I thought another baby would make our family complete.

James was surprised and not quite as enthusiastic about the idea of adoption as I'd hoped. He'd been banking on the fact that we were done with babies and here I was proposing another one. James really didn't want to go through the whole nappies and sleepless nights thing again.

So we talked it over a little more and came to a compromise. We'd apply for approval to adopt but only for a child aged two or older. A small part of me still wants to adopt an infant but I'm so excited to be expanding our family that I'm not even focusing on that right now.

We started getting everything ready straight away, which included putting in some play equipment outside. Our backyard had been long neglected and the boys had been pestering us for something like this for a while, so even if we don't get approved, we've made Aaron and Ethan very happy!

I hope it'll encourage Ethan to invite some of his friends from school home with him. He's been playing by himself a lot lately.

Aaron is growing up and although he's still nice to his brother, I guess it's not cool to be hanging out with "little kids" any more.

Aaron has his friends over all the time, usually one of the Clarke twins. They never seem very keen for Ethan to tag along with them.

My parents are enjoying their retirement, especially Mum. I never thought she'd be content to stay at home all day but she's loving it!

She's even transferred ownership of Lost Generation over to James - she says she's too old to hang out with a bunch of teenagers all night!

Lost Generation does a roaring business but James isn't sure it's quite the right avenue for him.

The place seems to get dirty faster than it should and James feels like he's constantly cleaning the place.

Then there are the kids. Most of them are nice and are just there to have some fun...

Then there are the nuisance kids - those who are just there to make trouble or who won't take no for an answer. James wants to keep Mum's business going, but not at the cost of his sanity and he's not sure he wants to deal with this sort of thing day in and day out. If he can find a good buyer, he might sell up and start his own business instead.

Notes:

• Madelyn drew the "Adopt a Child" ROS this round. The child will be arriving in Autumn 2015. James and Madelyn have to be prepared for any age child (except a baby) who needs them purely because I haven't decided what age child I want them to have yet. :P
• I will probably sell Lost Generation back to the community. I don't know why so many people say they enjoy running venues because I find them a complete bore. There's not really much for the owner to do, which doesn't make for a very exciting play session. Also, banning everyone but teens from the lot worked better when it was a straight community lot. I get adults sneaking in all the time now and still haven't really found a good solution for it. Visitor Controller works but it means I need to have teen employees, which I don't want, because it zaps away adult employees. So Lost Generation will go back to the way it originally was, and be an unowned community lot.