Round 36: December 2043 (Summer)
Narrated by Nick Moretti
The kids are all off school for their Christmas break and are looking forward to six weeks off!
Thomas is old enough to head off on his own (within reason), so he’s already gone to hang out with his friends a few times.
He’s not especially interested in dating yet, so even though his group of friends is mixed, it’s all pretty innocent.
Thomas has also been great about getting his brothers and sister out of the house for a bit.
I guess if they were bratty and prone to giving him a ton of trouble, he might not be but they’re good kids.
He’s happy to let them play at the park while he just sits and reads.
Both Thomas and Ryan are more into books than anything else. Because they’re so close in age and share the same interests, they’ll often read the same books and talk about them together when they’re done.
Catherine says reading is “boring”, which has led to her struggling in school at various times. Catherine is sports-mad and she can usually be found dragging Alex outside for a game of catch or something.
Alex isn’t really especially sporty but he’s young enough that he’ll go along with whatever his older siblings want to do.
He was so excited to be able to start school with Ryan and Catherine this year, even though he’s in a completely different classroom.
We went a bit crazy this year and decided we’d invite
everyone over for Christmas, both my side and Sarah’s.
Sarah’s side is tiny - it’s just her, Kimberly,
Susannah,
Daniel and
Zac.
My side is another story. One set of parents, one set of stepparents, four siblings, plus my siblings’ partners.
But we really wanted to do it. Once my brothers and sisters start having kids, it’s going to get even more insane and we might not be able to do it then.
Kimberly was a little wary of the idea but Sarah promised her she wouldn’t have to do anything except eat and enjoy herself.
The kids didn’t get off so easy.
They all had to help clean up the place before everyone came over. At least they didn’t complain
too much.
We decided buffet-style might work best. No hope of fitting everyone around the dining table anyway! The day went really well, in the end.
Things weren’t great when Mum and Dad first split but for most of my life, they’ve got along pretty well. Getting together just isn’t something that happens all that often though.
It’s something I always like seeing. My parents are both great people and I appreciate that I was shielded from most of the ugliness when I was a kid.
My siblings are all a lot younger than I am and we’ve always been in totally different life stages. They’re all still doing the roomie thing and living relatively carefree lives.
I like to tease Veronica that she’ll be the next one to “settle down”.
She pretends to be annoyed about it but even she has to admit, she probably will be next.
Austin and Nora are pretty solid but nowhere near marriage yet.
Neither Lauren or Anthony are dating anyone at the moment, let alone seriously.
Mitchell’s got a girlfriend, Christina, but she didn’t even show up, so I don’t think it’s going too well.
He likes her a lot but it doesn’t sound like she’s that into him. She’s never got along with any of his friends, or the family members who’ve met her.
Just lately, she doesn’t seem to be taking much of an interest in Mitchell himself either.
I feel really awful for him but I have to admit, it makes me extra grateful for Sarah.
I’m so glad I don’t have to think about dating ever again. I’m much happier married!
Christmas with four kids, plus all the family, is obviously always a hectic event. Still, Sarah and I would like to make it just slightly more hectic next year.
After Alex, we had decided to stop at four but left open the possibility of a fifth. We’ve been talking about it ever since and we finally decided to go for it.
If we’re going to have another, time is of the essence. Neither of us are getting any younger and we don’t want too big a gap between Alex and the next one.
We’ve never had much trouble conceiving before but this time has been different.
It took us several months to get pregnant at all, and now that we are, Sarah is having a really tough time of it.
She’s sick constantly, she’s exhausted and she’s had some pretty painful cramping, which was a little scary.
Sarah isn’t thrilled about the idea but she’s going to talk to her boss about working from home for a while. If she ends up having to scale back even further in the coming months, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
We’ve had everything checked out and Sarah and the baby are okay but we both feel like taking it easy might be the best course of action.
The most important thing right now is making sure we get to welcome another healthy baby into our family.
Notes:
- That's all of my Grade 7 kids in the food court in the mall! I think that's the biggest class I've ever had. Which reminds me I really do need to do a school update one of these days. I feel very rusty with them but I'll schedule one in for next round.
- Christina really didn't show up. I teleported her in for a brief minute and she had zero wants for Mitchell, even though she's supposedly a Family sim who's in love with him. So I don't think that's going well!
- I've decided I'm happy with the base odds for multiples for most of my sims but because Sarah is of "advanced maternal age", I will be rolling for multiples for her. And hoping against hope she doesn't get them! You'll find out in her second trimester update, which I think I have scheduled for March. She's due in August. :)
- Sarah experienced some pre-term contractions during this session, so I ended up ignoring everyone else for a lot of the time, so I could make sure she didn't miscarry. All is still well - fingers crossed it stays that way!
- Totally off-topic but I added a little poll to my side bar, so you can all predict what Nathan and Rebecca are having. If you're on mobile and can't see the side bar, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "View Web Version".
Another baby! This should be interesting, especially if they have twins. What is their IFS? I do the whole changing odds for multiples as well (http://applevalleyblogs.blogspot.com/2012/08/multiple-births.html), but I'm interested in how you're going to do your multiples odds. You mentioned rolling for them-will it be random? I hope she is able to rest so that they have a healthy baby
ReplyDeleteWell, it's weighted random, I guess you could call it. I roll for it but there's only a small chance of quads, slightly higher chance of triplets, moderate chance for twins and the biggest chance is for a singleton. I think my odds are roughly the same as yours, if not exactly. :)
DeleteNick's IFS is 5, so he's set with this, whatever happens. Sarah's is 8, which she could theoretically reach with just this one pregnancy, depending on the rolls! I'm kind of hoping not though. ;) Let some family that doesn't already have a hundred kids have quads, lol!
Thanks for reading and commenting!
The poll was fun! But that's worrisome about Sarah's cramping; hopefully she's able to get enough rest and no more scares like that. The 7th grade group at the mall was fun to see, and Thomas is such a mature and sweet guy. I know what you mean about school updates. I was just thinking with the large group of kids in the legacy now, about doing one, but don't even know where to start and it feels overwhelming. Your school updates are always really good and will the 7th graders be in the new school that you've been showing as you built it?
ReplyDeleteOh man, I was so scared when I heard Sarah's moaning! I was biting my fingernails until I got the pop-up that it was just pre-term contractions. Fortunately, I'll only have to play her for two more days to bump her up to second and then third trimester. I can take care of her for two days, fingers crossed!
DeleteI'm pretty excited about some possible future couples among this group of teens (including the age-ups I just did this weekend) but wow, I have a lot of boys. Next year in Grade 7/8, there'll be two girls and eight boys. Yikes! And yes, these kids will be attending the school I built. It's high school Australian style, so it's grades 7-12.
Yes, school updates can be a bit much and I feel so out of it with them at the moment! I might just teleport everyone in and see what they all do and just make it a mostly pic spam thing, at least to dip my toe back in the water.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
How wonderful, congrats to Nick & Sarah! Wow though, five kids. They seem switched on and very family orientated so I guess that's a good sign. :)
ReplyDeleteSad that Nick has only really known his parents as being separated. But it's good that they still get along and he can see them as good people individually. It's probably best that he didn't seem them during the stages of their separation because he would probably think a lot differently about them both. Divorce can be really tough for everyone involved.
Yeah, if anyone was going to have five kids, it'd be these two nuts! ;) Their kids are also unnaturally sweet and well-behaved (both Nick and Sarah are maxed out in Nice), so it doesn't seem so overwhelming for them to add a fifth.
DeleteNick would have some memories of his parents together but not too many. They were never married but they split when he was about 7 or 8. Caleb and Abigail had Nick very young and neither were really ready to settle down, least of all with a kid. They both had a bit of growing up to do first.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Nick and Sarah are still so sweet. Ha ha, I think I must have been on vacation or something at whatever point they ended up with 4 kids plus one on the way! (Although it looks like a few came one right after the other.) Plus a mom and a dog, and that is a full house. They are probably wise to arrange a holiday now rather than in a few years when the family is sure to explode with little ones once Nick's sibs start having them. They'll have to rent out a park or something, lol!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of how SCARY pregnancies could be in TS2, even without mods. And sicknesses. And pregnant sims who got sick! I miss that in a totally morbid way, lol! There is just no challenge at all to TS4 sickness or pregnancy, but I know that I lost quite a few much-loved sims to both things in TS2.
Just out of curiosity, what is the most children any one of your sims have ever had? (I mean, regular neighborhood sims, not like a 100 baby challenge or anything, lol!)
Ha, oh, really? Ryan came along rather suddenly. Sarah had Thomas and then she and Nick decided to get her knocked up again (at someone's wedding, no less!) before I had a chance to put her back on BC, lol! If I wasn't rolling for multiples, I'd have no worries about twins at all, because the game actually wouldn't allow them to happen in a household this big! But I believe the Triplets and Quads hack can override that. ;)
DeleteYes, you're right, even without mods, pregnant sims' hunger drops much faster than other sims. And there was that weird thing where sometimes they'd just drop dead. That happened to me way, way, way back but only once, fortunately!
Most kids ever? Well, I did the 10 kids thing once, just to see if I could, but I did it with a gay couple who adopted them all as children (without mods, adopting doesn't fulfill the want unless the couple is gay), so that was a bit cheaty. Most kids naturally was eight. I created a single mother with twin girls, she got married and conceived one baby. Then her father (in the same household) died at the exact moment she went into labour and the game got stuck in a loop. Instead of the one baby, I ended up with six. That was in the hood I played right before Sullivan. I played them all until they were teens but I cheated a LOT. It was insane.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
This is such a lovely family, and how nice that Nick was able to have his whole family in attendance for Christmas. That is not something that comes easily for many families like Nick, and it's great that he has that! Poor Mitchell, that's rough, but better to find out now than later on.
ReplyDeleteI am super excited about them having another baby! Twins would be cute, but no no on anything higher!! That would be such chaos, I'd cry for them! :D They'd be adorable babies though, so there is that!
It's great how well their kids get along, and I loved the peak at the seventh grade kids. I am very excited to see your school update when you get back into it! You have a lot of fun personalities in high school now, and I'm looking forward to seeing them pair up when they are all a bit older.
I couldn't have foreseen Abigail and Caleb someday getting along so well but here we are. Nicer for everyone, I think. I wasn't overly attached to Christina, so I'm fine with her and Mitchell splitting...but he doesn't seem to be, the poor guy. :(
DeleteWell, as I said to Laura above, I've done sextuplets before, so quads would be a breeze in comparison. ;) But I'm really, really not hoping for quads, lol!
I'll probably try to schedule a very casual school update for next round. :) If it starts shaping up more story-like, then we'll call it a bonus. It's a good way to get to know my teens and I feel like I haven't been able to do that as much without a school!
Thanks for reading and commenting!