Wishing well

Round 30: January 2031

last update/next update

Adam Gottlieb is 76, Athena is 71, Amelia is 42, Wade is 41, Noah is 13 and Emma is 11.
(Sophie is 18, Elspeth is 17)

Narrated by Wade Gottlieb

Amelia took me by surprise all those months ago when she told me how she really felt about the whole situation with Joanna and Rose. I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked, because it's so obvious to me now that it should have been a joint decision. But that's meant that we've been talking more, which is better. Amelia sometimes likes to let things stew.

I've offered a few times to back out on Joanna and Rose. We've done a few cycles but so far, they've been unsuccessful so there's still a chance for me to quit, if that's what Amelia wants. Amelia is quite adamant that she doesn't want that though, so we've mostly been talking about another baby.

Amelia has always wanted another but she knew I didn't, so she mostly dropped the subject. But the possibility of Rose getting pregnant, especially with me helping her out there, brought back those feelings for her.

We helped Sophie move into her dorm and that seemed to intensify the baby lust for her.

She feels like all her babies are moving on and that our family is not yet complete.

Almost as soon as we got home, she asked me if I would seriously consider another baby. I'd been wondering if she'd float the idea again, so I was only mildly surprised.

I agreed that I'd give it some thought and even that by itself made Amelia happy.

I never really saw myself having as many kids as we do now. Sophie was a surprise and though I loved her right away, it didn't make me want to have a ton more.

But we ended up with Noah and we were suddenly parents of two. Then Amelia talked me into having Emma and we had three kids. And we did adapt.

Four just seems like so many kids though! Amelia says it wouldn't feel like it, because our other kids are so big now.

She might be right. Sophie is at college, of course and Noah and Emma are almost grown now. Noah actually asked me for advice on girls the other day!

He's 13 now, so I guess he's at that age. It's still hard for me to believe though.

Noah has a crush on an older girl. Her name is Elspeth and she's in Grade 12. She's a friend of Sophie's.

He says he's talked to her a few times and it's gone okay. It sounds like she sees Noah as her friend's little brother and nothing more.

He tried to ask her out though and she was definitely not into it. Noah was quite crushed.

I don't really want my 13 year-old son dating a 17 year-old girl anyway. I told Noah he might want to focus on girls his own age, at least for now.

He didn't like that too much - most of the girls he knows around his age are his cousins, so he's not exactly spoiled for choice!

Emma is growing up too. It used to be that her friends would come over and they'd play or jump on the bed.

Now they spend all their time gossiping instead.

Emma even begged us to let her have Sophie's old room, proclaiming her old room to be for little kids. She's still in primary school but she's already acting more like a teenager.

Starting over with a baby, 11 years after our last one, is a little scary.

But as Amelia keeps reminding me, I was really nervous before Sophie was born and we got through that. And Amelia had to work pretty hard to convince me to have a second and then a third.

She's right and I can't really imagine our family without Sophie, Noah and Emma now. I can't go back in time and change the way I handled the thing with Rose and Joanna but I can do this. If a fourth is going to make Amelia happy, then I want to try.

So I told Amelia that yes, we could start trying.

I haven't seen her that excited in a long time!

Seeing Amelia is 42, I was expecting that we'd have to try for a while before we were successful and I wasn't even sure we ever would be.

I guess we're super fertile, because Amelia got pregnant pretty much right away! She's completely ecstatic.

I'm adjusting; I wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly, so I'm kind of in shock at the moment.

Notes:

• Title is from Wishing Well by Phantom Planet.
• Poor Noah! The only romantic wants he's rolled have been for Elspeth, which is just not happening. And the girls around his age really are all his cousins. I'll have two new teen girls (well, three but one is his sister) next year though, so hopefully he'll take a liking to one of them.
• I have been rolling each month to see if this is Rose's month for getting pregnant (I have a little thingy set up with Hook's Randomiser). No luck so far, which might be a good thing, at least for my population!
• I decided to take Amelia off BC and just see what happened and she and Wade tried for a baby just about every time! It was several times before they were successful but I was quite surprised it happened as quickly as it did. It will make my population even more crazy (argh!) but I do think Amelia needs to satisfy that baby want if she has any hope of being okay with Rose being pregnant, when she eventually does. It is a fairly big compromise on Wade's part, perhaps, but he's kind of a take-them-as-they-come guy and I think he'll do okay with this.