The passenger

Round 30: February 2032 (Summer)

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Luc Lane is 39, Asha is 35, Ruby is 5, Marcus is 3 and Felix is 8 months old.
(Linnea is 72, Steve is 37 and Ramona is 5)

Narrated by Luc Lane

Ruby is in kindergarten now and she talks non-stop. Asha and I can hardly get a word in over dinner!

If she's not talking our ears off, she's on the phone. Worryingly, she's usually talking to boys.

Asha thinks that in about 10 years, I'm going to be dealing with 15 year-old versions of me trying to get their hands on my daughter. She thinks it's pretty funny.

I hope Asha is wrong but I'm trying to encourage Ruby's friendship with Ramona anyway. She has plenty of time for boys later, like when she's 30 or something.

They're very different girls but they somehow manage to get along. Asha and Olivia have been getting them together since they were babies, so it's not much of a surprise they're now close friends.

It's a good opportunity to hang out with Steve for a bit. We weren't really that close before the girls were born but that's forced us to spend more time together.

Steve is pretty into music as well. He plays classical but he's interested in and listens to all different types.

Asha and I have been busy adjusting to life with three kids. Three kids under five, no less but it actually hasn't been so bad.

Especially with Ruby off at school during the day. That gives us a little break.

Felix has been a much easier baby than Ruby or Marcus were, which has been a nice change. He's only 8 months old but so far, he's not nearly as demanding.

Marcus has chilled out a little too and is a lot more pleasant to be around. Asha is thrilled. She was fairly certain Felix's arrival would mean disaster. She was freaked out about it right up until we brought him home.

She still doesn't want any more kids though. Once we found out Asha was pregnant with Felix, I was basically ordered to go and and have a vasectomy.

I'd agreed but I wasn't really happy about it, so that didn't stop me from whining about it as the day drew closer.

Not that Asha had any sympathy at all. She really hates being pregnant and now that we have three kids, she's putting her foot down.

Honestly, if it was up to me, we'd have a fourth. I have so much fun with the kids. I'd been looking forward to being a dad since Timothy was born and ideally, I'd love to have a whole army of kids.

But Asha says I'm not the one who has to go through pregnancy or childbirth and that she ends up doing most of the not-so-fun stuff once the kids are here too. I couldn't really argue with that.

So reluctantly, I went in to get snipped. I could tell Asha thought I was being a baby about it but she stopped short of actually saying so.

But it wasn't that bad. Within the hour, I was back outside with Asha, waiting for a taxi to get back home.

It was a little painful but I didn't mind having an excuse to laze around the house for a couple of days.

While Asha was at work, Mum came around to help out with Marcus and Felix.

She's been getting more into the grandma thing recently.

Ruby especially is growing really close to Mum. Ruby loved having her there after school every day while I was recovering.

I was happy to have her come and help out but she can be exhausting. After spending all day with her, I was really ready for Asha to get home from work.

I deal with Mum better than Cordy can but three days in a row was still enough.

When Felix was born, Asha and I decided to have him and Marcus share a (very large) room and convert our spare into a mini-recording studio. We've been wanting to do it for a while but only just got the cash together to get it done.

Asha and I have even recorded a few tracks together, which was fun.

Ruby has always loved watching me play. Marcus isn't the slightest bit interested and Felix is too young to tell, so I'm happy to have one fan in the family, at least.

She's already learning the piano, so she practises on our keyboards at home.

She's also played around a little on my synthesiser. She would love to get her hands on some of the recording equipment but it's very expensive, so we haven't let her touch that yet.

My career has been taking off recently and in the future, there might be months where I won't be home at all, because I'll be playing shows out of town.

If I'm going to be away from home more often, I don't want to be spending more time travelling to and from a recording studio on top of that. I'd rather make the most of the time I do have at home.

Notes:

• Title is from The Passenger by Iggy Pop.
  
• Ruby had the want to be friends with Matthew (her cousin) and then once that was fulfilled, she wanted to be friends with Justin Moretti, Austin Carmody, Gabriel Nott and one other boy whose name escapes me. So with the exception of Ramona, she does seem to be more of a boys' girl, which could mean trouble for Luc down the line!
• The recording studio stuff is from Around the Sims 2. It's just decorative (I used the poker table animations to make Luc look like he was using the mixing board) but it looks very cool anyway.
• I think this is the first round in a while that has ended with pregnancy for Asha! Luc's ideal family size is 4 but Asha's is 3 and I've decided they're stopping here. I can't really see them having four kids anyway.
• I played Linnea right before I played this family and her Family side is totally taking over! When I gave her that as a secondary, I think I commented that it didn't suit her. She just had the flu at Uni and I needed someone to make that soup! But I think she's sort of coming into it now, as an elder.