Pennyroyal tea

Round 24: Spring 2019

last update/next update

Collette Sitko is 74, Julian is 69, David is 37, Kirstin is 35, Camilla and Lila are both 6 and Adelaide is 1.
(Amelia is 30 and Noah is 1)

Narrated by David Sitko

After Kirstin's maternity leave was up, I decided to go and speak to my boss about taking some time off to stay home with Adelaide.

I never thought he'd go for it but he did! I'm really glad I talked to him about it because being home with Adelaide has been fantastic.

I let Kirstin take over when she gets home from work and we're both pretty happy with the arrangement.

Being home all the time drives Kirstin nuts - she needs to work and was thrilled to go back - but I really love it. I could do it full time.

I've been helping Adelaide learn to walk, teaching her nursery rhymes - it's been great!

And I'm home when Camilla and Lila get home from school, which is nice for them and for me.

I've taken over most of the chores but I don't mind too much. I just wonder how all of the mess seems to be concentrated in Camilla's bedroom. We're all pretty neat in this house but Camilla just never seems to pick up after herself.

Collette was pretty relieved to have me taking over the bulk of the domestic stuff. Even got a thank you!

But it's left her a little bored around the house and she's had to find some other activities to keep her busy.

And one of those activities has been poker. She goes down to The Blue Lion almost every day and plays.

She's got my mother into it as well. They're both regulars at that pub now.

They always win, which Collette says she finds a little boring. I think she just likes the idea of being two little old ladies sitting down at a poker table and then wiping the floor with their much younger opponents.

The regular players all avoid her table now.

My sister Amelia came over the other week and she brought her little boy Noah. He's only a few months younger than Adelaide, so we like to get them together when we can so they can play. We did the same thing with Sophie and Camilla and Lila, which worked out really well. They were all already friends when they started pre-school.

She's having a little bit of morning sickness this time, after not getting any with Sophie or Noah.

I think Kirstin is taking a certain amount of smug pleasure in this. Kirstin had awful pregnancies and always envied Amelia's relatively easy ones.

While we're catching up downstairs, Noah and Adelaide play in Lila's room upstairs, with Collette keeping an eye on them.

They've become about as close as such little kids can be and Adelaide is very sweet with Noah but I'm worried she'll turn out more like Lila.

I love Lila but she has some issues with anger and we really have to watch her to be sure she's not teasing one of her sisters.

We try to keep her distracted but we haven't found that one activity that really grabs her attention.

Nothing like Camilla and her painting anyway. I can't count the times she's been late for the school bus because she's been engrossed in her easel.

Camilla is the opposite of Lila. She's always running up to us, just for a hug. I'm hoping Camilla might rub off on Lila a bit. Kirstin isn't worried - she says she was a lot like Lila as a little girl, so I hope she's right.

Julian has been tossing a baseball around with Lila in the backyard every night and she seems to be really into that. Maybe we can refocus her energies into sport - get out some aggression. Julian is more than willing to help in that capacity. He used to do the same sort of thing with Kirstin when she was younger.

She's too much of a workaholic now to play baseball. She's on that laptop so late into the night sometimes.

Kirstin is much better than she used to be though. She's much more relaxed. She hasn't been promoted in a while, which would have freaked her out 5 years ago. She now realises that she's only 35, which is not old and that she has plenty of time to climb the ladder.

Especially now that we're done with babies. I'm not going to lie and say I wouldn't be ecstatic if we had a fourth because I would. I don't think Kirstin would be but she's on some pretty heavy duty birth control and we've both agreed that we're happy with the girls we've got.

Random pic:

This is a close-up of Collette from the first poker picture. Is this woman not frightening?

Notes:

• Title is from Pennyroyal Tea by Nirvana (and it is "tea", not "tee" like on the video).
• Collette rolled the ROS "You're feeling creative. Take up a new hobby or start a new business: painting, music, writing, crafting, pet breeding, whatever strikes your fancy." this round, so seeing she's a Games Sim who has only ever really played video games and chess, I decided she could be the hood's new card shark. Except the poker table was being a little weird and they weren't really doing much except rolling the chips around and dealing the cards over and over. Collette did make some pretty awesome faces while she was playing though! So let's just pretend Collette kicked everyone's asses, because she totally would!
• "Heavy duty birth control" in Sullivan is ACR BC and Inteen BC at the same time. I think anyone with 3 kids is definitely going to be doubling up from now on and probably the couples with 2 kids too. Except Jonas and Tatiana. When I had Tatiana selectable at the Gottliebs the other day, she had (predictably) rolled up the want for another baby. And I love her and I just can't say no to her! So I'll let them try but I'm not going to go to any extreme measures either.