Dreams

Round 31: September 2034 (Spring)

last update/next update

Rob Ashton is 33, Patience is 32 and Felicity is 1.
(Lake is 77, Kendal is 58, Claudia is 33, Josie is 32 and Jude is 2)

Narrated by Patience Ashton

The weather has been beautiful lately, so Rob, Felicity and I have been taking advantage of our little backyard.

We hardly ever spent much time out there before Felicity was born but now that she's here, it doesn't seem right to stay cooped up inside all day.

We went through a little bit of heartbreak before we became parents but we're enjoying every minute of it now.

One of my favourite things now is to watch Rob and Felicity together. It's such a change from the first few weeks where he looked like he was worried he was going to break her.

Rob can be incredibly serious sometimes and I wasn't sure how he'd be with a toddler. He's really wonderful with her though.

I'm pretty sure I never ever heard Rob sing pre-Felicity, but he's down on the floor all the time now, teaching her nursery rhymes. It's really sweet.

Because of my job, Rob ends up doing more nights with Felicity than I do and from his reports, they have a great time.

She's only 14 months old but she's such a daddy's girl already. She has Rob wrapped around her little finger.

I'd really like to scale things back with work, because I want to be around more for Felicity.

Slowing down a little would also mean I could spend more time with Rob. Apart from the matinee, all our shows are at night, so there are days when we only see each other as he's coming home and I'm leaving.

I would love to work less but the fact is, I need to keep my name out there. If I pull back too much, I'll be forgotten. Rob thinks I should just take more time for the family if I want to.

It's not that simple though. My job just doesn't work that way. I was lucky the producers of my current show were so accommodating as it is.

When I was pregnant, they had my understudy take over the second I started to show. Since Felicity was born, the understudy has been doing an extra one of my shows, so I can have more time at home. I've asked for enough. If I ask for more, it would be easier for them to just cast another actress.

I'm not too down about it anyway, because I do love my job. I just miss Felicity when I'm at work, which seems pretty common among other mothers.

I know Claudia felt that way with Daphne. Seeing she was never really that passionate about her job anyway, she gave it up completely and is a stay-at-home mother now.

Josie thinks Claudia is insane. Josie was so bored on maternity leave and couldn't wait to get back to the hospital.

Troy is currently trying to convince Josie to try for baby number 2. She's not quite sure she wants one yet and part of it is that she's dreading pregnancy and the maternity leave that comes afterwards.

I hope she comes around though. They're doing such a great job with Jude. He's so sweet and gentle with Felicity.

He's definitely not the kind of child I ever pictured Josie raising!

There are lots of little kids around us right now, so lots of our down time is spent with extended family.

Dad has become a bit of a softie in his old age and likes to do the grandpa thing on weekends. He's so cute with all the grandkids. He loves it.

We want Felicity to know all of her cousins as well, seeing that, for the moment, she's an only child.

I had been fully expecting Kendal to start inquiring about when Rob and I were planning on a second kid by now. When Jude was about Felicity's age, I think she was already asking Troy.

So far though, she only asks about Felicity and how she's doing and steers clear of any talk about more kids.

I think she's sensitive about the baby we lost and doesn't want to put any pressure on me about pregnancy or anything.

I'd been worried about how I'd react to that kind of line of questioning, so I'm really glad it hasn't come up.

I wasn't really sure if I'd get to the point where I wanted another baby. After my miscarriage, I just found pregnancy to be stressful and emotionally draining. I didn't know if I wanted to go through that again.

Rob admitted early on that he wanted another one but he stressed that he would be totally fine with it if we didn't and Felicity stayed an only child.

As Felicity got older though, I realised I didn't want her to be an only child. She's an extrovert, like me. I'm sure she'd be fine if she didn't ever end up with a sibling because it would be all she would know. But I do really want to try to give her one.

On top of that, I'm just getting sad thinking about all of Felicity's "firsts" and how if we don't have another, I'll never get to experience those milestones again.

So we're going to try again but we're only in the planning stages right now. This unit is perfect for the three of us but if we want another baby, we'll need to move. Then we can start trying.

We're both very nervous about starting that process again. We're going to stay positive though and look forward to hopefully giving Felicity a baby brother or sister in a couple of years' time.

Extras: Daphne was actually there with Claudia (Iris stayed home), even though you didn't really see her.

Jude is quite a nice little boy but you can see he's inherited some of his parents' attitude here!

I mostly just couldn't stop taking pictures of Felicity though! So cute!

Notes:

• Title is from Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.
• Patience rolls a lot of wants for Felicity and Rob while she's at work, which is quite sweet. But I don't see her as the type to give up her career for her family. It's her LTW (unlike with Claudia), so I see it as something extremely important to her.
• I was waiting on Patience to roll another want for a baby and she did. She's still on BC right now, as I can see both her and Rob being a little bit apprehensive about trying again. But Rob wants two and Patience wants nine (not going to happen!), so I figure they will try once I take them off the BC. So maybe next round?
• I really want to come up with some kind of system for paying my actors better. Patience is currently a Broadway Star. I looked up how much money a lead actor on Broadway would be getting and it's pretty highly paid! In real life, I don't think a successful actress and an attorney would have much trouble buying a fairly nice house. I don't want them to be motherloded into oblivion but I do want their financial situation to be somewhat realistic. Right now, they've only got about $30,000. That will buy them a house but they probably won't have much left for decorating.