Tornados

Round 32: February 2036 (Summer)

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Steve Nihill is 41, Olivia is 39, Ramona is 9, Jacinta is 6 and Theo is 6 months.
(Asha is 39, Camilla is 23, Ruby is 9 and Grace is 6)

Narrated by Olivia Nihill

This week, Ramona and Jacinta started back at school after six weeks of summer vacation.

As a special treat for the first day back, I cooked up some waffles for breakfast.

Ramona really enjoyed them. She couldn't get them into her mouth fast enough.

Steve and I happened to both have that Monday off, so we got to spend a quiet, relaxing day at home.

We're lucky that Theo lets us do that. He's been our easiest baby by far.

Theo is very easily soothed and unbelievably quiet, compared to his sisters.

Theo has just been a really lovely, happy baby so far. We weren't planning on a third child, at least not so soon but we're glad now that he came along when he did.

Ramona and Jacinta both wanted another sister but I don't think they've been too disappointed with Theo.

The girls just like trying to make him smile and giggle. I hope they love him when he's older the same way they do now. They're so sweet with him.

During my maternity leave, I always felt like I was doing more of the work with Theo, no matter how much Steve helped out.

Now that we're both working again, it feels like more of a shared load. Steve's never been the kind of dad to leave all the dirty work to me, so it's nice.

He probably does more for Theo than I do at the moment, seeing I work longer hours than he does.

I'm taking a little break from designing at the moment and working as a stylist. Some of my clients have very definite ideas of what they want and it's a hard sell to get them to go with my ideas.

Others are willing to let me do whatever I want.

Ultimately, they're always happy with my work.

They just need to learn to trust me. I know what I'm doing.

My intern, Camilla, makes my job a lot easier. She's so eager to learn, so I have a tendency to pass a lot of my smaller duties on to her.

Camilla is often the one who finds items which I then recommend to various clients.

Any time there's a fashion show I'm attending, Camilla is usually right next to me. I work Camilla pretty hard, which I feel bad about sometimes. It's just the reality of this business sometimes though and I think Camilla understands that.

We've also become good friends outside of work as well. We met a few years ago, before we started working together and found we had a lot in common.

We both grew up in families full of sports nuts and neither of us have many friends who are into anything artistic, so we talk a lot about that.

Not just fashion but sculpture, painting...anything visual. I love having someone to discuss that with.

Camilla does make me feel a little old though! I'm 39, she's 23 and our daughters are the same age.

Jacinta buddied up with Grace at their pre-school orientation and they've been close ever since.

We try to organise plenty of play dates for them.

Sometimes they set up their own play dates and Steve or I come home only to find out Grace has been there for a couple of hours. They just feel like visiting, so they get off the bus together after school.

We've been trying to impress upon Jacinta the importance of checking with both sets of parents before having friends over to play, so that's hopefully happened for the last time. They don't mean to be naughty, they just get too excited about playing together.

At least Grace isn't as exhausting as Ramona's friend Ruby. I'm pretty sure the pillow fight in our bedroom wasn't Ramona's idea.

But of course, she's 9, so once it was suggested, she was totally on board with the idea.

I don't know how Asha deals with Ruby, plus her two brothers. Who are pretty similar to Ruby, by all accounts. Ruby tires me out after having her over for just a few hours.

Asha always says she's not sure she does deal with it, at least not well. She tries to discipline them but Luc is a soft touch, so she doesn't think it does much good.

I still don't know what Theo will be like but hearing about Asha's kids makes me glad for my relatively sedate daughters.

We don't have any grandparents to leave them with and all our friends have kids of their own, so it's nice to know we can call a babysitter without her refusing to come back a second time.

Steve asked me a few days ago if I wanted to take advantage of that and go somewhere together, just the two of us.

That was the best idea I'd heard in a long time!

We're going to go in the spring, so the trip will coincide with our ten year anniversary. I can't think of a better way to celebrate.

Notes:

• Title is from Tornados by Ben Lee.
• Steve and Olivia aren't allowed birth control, so I'm experimenting with them to see if they try again. Olivia's IFS is 3, so she's definitely done. Steve's is 5 but they haven't tried for another baby (yet? LOL), so I think Theo may well and truly be their last. Olivia is getting up there in years and she's never been the most fertile Sim.
• Doing all of Olivia and Camilla's scenes made me wish I had a Fashion Design career lot in the game. That'll probably be my next one.
• Can you believe Steve and Olivia have been married almost 10 years? I checked their profiles near the end of my play session and had to include a little nod to that. ;) They have the want to go on another vacation, so I'll send them sometime. Off-camera. I'll share pictures if anything cute happens.