With a bullet

Round 25: Summer 2022

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Mina Lachance is 72, Abigail Carmody is 39, Jesse is 37, Mitchell is 3 and Austin and Lauren are 6 months old.
(Nick is 19, Maia is 20, Caleb is 40, Jonas is 44, Dominic is 12, Audrey is 10 and Edward is 7)

Narrated by Jesse Carmody

As much as Abigail and I love our kids, I think having three under three has put us off the idea of any more, at least for a little while. It took us so long to conceive Mitchell so we weren't expecting her to get pregnant so quickly the second time around. Then we found out we were having twins, we were really taken by surprise.



As it is now, it's 9pm before we can even think about sitting down or feeding ourselves and a fourth child wouldn't make that any easier.

And honestly, I don't want to do the nappy thing again. I didn't meet Nick until he was about 9, so Mitchell was my first experience with nappies and I'm still not used to it. I know no one likes changing babies but I really hate it.

What's worse is Abigail seems to disappear every time a change is due, so I end up doing most of the dirty work.

If we could only get Mitchell trained! He's been very reluctant so far.

The kids are actually great though. Austin loves his bouncy chair. He loves pretty much everything, actually.

Lauren just likes chilling out in her crib and she gets cranky if we try to get her to do anything else. Maybe she's a little lazy, like her dad!

Mitchell really loves the robots Mina has been making for him lately.

And we just figured out why they keep malfunctioning. Robots don't like toddler drool.

Nick's classes for the year haven't started yet, so he's been able to come and see us more often.

He doesn't want Mitchell to forget him, and seeing he's too young to talk on the phone, Nick spends a lot of time with him when he's at home.

He's been helping out a bit with the twins, which gives us a nice break.

The last time he came over, Nick brought his girlfriend Maia with him.

We'd all met Maia before, because she and Nick have been friends since they were teenagers but they've been dating now, so it only seemed right that she come with Nick while he's visiting. I don't think we'd actually seen her since she was 13 or 14 anyway.

Abigail likes Maia a lot more than she liked Nick's ex, Josie. Abigail hated Josie. They met at Caleb's wedding and Abigail just couldn't stand her straight away.

Speaking of Caleb, he also came along. Caleb and Abigail are at the point where they can be together and are quite comfortable. Abigail is even good friends with Caleb's wife.
But Caleb and I have never really spent much time together, so there's still a lot of awkwardness between us.

Abigail and I didn't start up under the best of circumstances and I doubt we'll ever be good friends. He definitely gives me some funny looks sometimes.

I tend to avoid Caleb when he's over. It's probably the only time you'll ever catch me taking out the garbage voluntarily.

I take over most of the baby care when Caleb is around.

I think I'm as uncomfortable with him as he is with me. Abigail took so long to make her mind between me and Caleb and it crosses my mind occasionally that she might still have some feelings for him, deep down. I think it's just a little anxiety on my end but I can't say it never worries me.

I've never said anything about it to Abigail, because I know it's better for everybody that she's friendly with Caleb. I think Abigail can sense when it's bothering me though.

She was a little more affectionate than usual when we went out to dinner a few days later. I'm really okay with her being friends with Caleb most of the time. It's only when he's actually around that I ever feel awkward.

The occasional night out is one of the benefits of living with your mother-in-law.

Mina was so keen to have another grandchild, so she was thrilled when we had Austin and Lauren and she loves babysitting.

Mina has 7 grandchildren now and she likes getting them all under the same roof.

It's pretty chaotic with all the kids in the same house but it's cool that my kids will know their cousins. I didn't know mine until I moved to Sullivan when I was already an adult.

There might be another cousin around soon enough, if Jonas and Tatiana get their way - they're trying for a fourth! Mina's not likely to get another grandchild out of Abigail and me so this is probably her last shot at #8.

I've never seen Dominic, Audrey and Edward bickering or fighting. They always seem to get along and they're almost insanely nice. It's too early to tell now but I might be able to be convinced to have a fourth if Mitchell, Austin and Lauren turn out as sweet as Jonas's kids!

Extra:

I was talking about this in Comments yesterday but this girl was trying to flirt with Dominic when I took Jesse and Abigail out for dinner and Dominic was just not having it. Not ready to date? Morally opposed to dating townies? Who could blame him? I've married in a lot of the nice-looking townies and many of the ones left are...not. I'll need to do some surgery soon!

Notes:

• Title is from With a Bullet by Sam Roberts.
• Jesse and Abigail both have a fear of nappies and Jesse has changed way more than Abigail has! But they lose 500 aspiration points every time they change one of the kids. Get over it, guys, because you've got a few more years of nappies left yet!
• Abigail rolled the want to become friends with Maia the next day, so they had a nice long phone call. She never rolled the want to become friends with Josie - she absolutely did not like her.
• Also, it's pretty interesting that Jesse and Caleb have never rolled the want to become friends. Abigail and Cara wanted to be friends pretty soon after meeting, so there was very little awkwardness there but weirdness between Jesse and Caleb abounds! Love this sort of stuff!
• Dominic, Audrey and Edward are so cute together - they roll up wants for each other all the time. And I feel almost like a proud mother looking at Audrey - look how tall she is now! Sniff...they grow up so fast!
• There's something weird going on with this couple's chemistry. Whenever I check Abigail and Jesse's attraction score, it's zero. :\ I know that's not right, because when I did my Valentine's post, they made my top 10. I've reset their turn ons and that didn't change anything. It's possibly on Jesse's end, because there was a little more weirdness with him. He lost his family ties to Anna and Betsy - they're his cousins but they weren't showing the family icon. I've fixed that and I'm hoping I can fix Jesse and Abigail too. They still display as three bolts in the relationship panel and they still do lots of ACR interactions. But that zero is really bothering me. Anyone have any ideas?
• Jonas rolled a baby want. Do you know how hard it's going to be for me to not let them have fertility treatments now? It was hard enough when it was just Tatiana but now that they both want a baby? Aww. I'm such a sucker for simultaneous baby wants.