Only in dreams

Round 29: April 2030 (Autumn)

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Abigail Carmody is 47, Jesse is 45, Mitchell is 11 and Austin and Lauren are both 9.
(Eliot is 44, Evan is 41, Nick is 27, Jessica and Emma are both 10)

Narrated by Jesse Carmody

Mitchell came to us recently and complained that his bedroom was "babyish" and asked if he could change it.


Abigail was a little hurt at first, because she decorated that room with Mina. When we moved in Mitchell loved it.

But Mitchell was 3 when we first moved in and obviously, his tastes have changed since then. He's 11 now and looking at the room, it is way too childish for a kid going off to high school next year.

Seeing we had a bunch of other stuff to get rid of anyway, besides Mitchell's things, we decided we'd hold a yard sale instead of letting it go to waste.

We sold Mina's old workbench, which I think was still hard for Abigail. But nobody here knows what to do with it and Mina might have been happy for it to go to someone who would use it.

We ended up making a few hundred dollars from the sale, which is certainly welcome. Abigail would have preferred to go without the cash register though!

Mitchell is really liking his new room. Most of the furniture was salvageable but all his little kid toys are gone, as well as the old pictures we had hanging up.

Mitchell's been very insistent lately that he's not a kid any more. He's too old for playing Cops and Robbers with Austin.

They'll play video games together but you're never too old for video games.

He's never been particularly into sports but his friend Tim is, so he plays a lot of soccer now anyway. Abigail works on Sundays, so I take all the kids down to the park to play.

Abigail worries about Austin and his laziness (which he gets from me), but soccer just isn't his game. He just ends up getting frustrated with it, because Declan beats him every time.

We can't usually tempt Lauren into playing any soccer, especially if Nick happens to drop by.

While the kids play, it's a good opportunity for Eliot and me to catch up as well. This time, I mentioned it had been a while since I'd seen Evan so we planned a boys' night out.

And no, it wasn't exactly a coincidence that I planned it on the night of Lauren's slumber party.

I wasn't exactly keen on listening to the giggling and squealing all night and was hoping they'd be fast asleep by the time I got home.

We went to a pub near where Eliot and Evan live and had a great time. We'll have to do it more often.

We played a game of poker, along with some college kid we didn't know who wanted to join in.

And we had a few beers, of course. It was a good night.

I was ready to be in trouble with Abigail when I got home, punishment for leaving her alone with five kids for the evening. She's chewed me out for way less before!

But all the kids went to bed without too much issue and apart from being a little loud, the girls were quite well-behaved. So Abigail was in a great mood.

But things have been really great for us in general lately. We've definitely had our rough patches since we got married but it feels like we're on sure footing now.

Notes:

• Title is from Only in Dreams by Weezer. It's on Grooveshark, but I seem to be unable to link to it right now. :\
• Abigail rolled the garage sale ROS this round. Seeing Mitchell's room needed an update really badly, I decided to tie it in with that. Austin and Lauren's rooms are actually more mature looking than Mitchell's was!
• Abigail and Jesse, as you may remember, were experiencing some major ACR weirdness over the past few rounds which meant a lot of Jesse's romantic interactions towards Abigail were rejected. I kept thinking I'd fixed it but then it'd happen again and I'd scream in frustration! I have thankfully fixed that now, hopefully permanently this time, so this is like a whole new start for these two.