Kentucky cocktail

Round 36: January 2044 (Summer)

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Ashton 1 household profile

Rob Ashton is 43, Patience is 42, Felicity is 11, Patrick is 8 and Gemma is 3. 

(Lake is 87, Kendal is 68, Iris is 10, Theo is 9 and Andrew is 8)

Narrated by Rob Ashton

Felicity turns 11 this year and is just starting her last year of primary school.

She’s never been very interested in academics but she likes going to school right now because that’s where all her friends are.

Next year, she’ll be leaving a lot of them behind when she goes off to high school and I’m worried she might not be as happy to go then.

She’s determined to enjoy this last year though, before she and Iris are separated for a year after that.

Felicity is the only kid in her grade at school, so her friends have always been a little older or a little younger than she is.

Hopefully, that means she’ll be okay starting high school on her own.

She already thinks she’s much more mature than she is, which is a little terrifying.

We’ve been trying to give her a bit more responsibility, because she seems to be craving it so much, so caring for Scotty is now mostly up to her.

She’s now entirely in charge of walking and feeding Scotty and she’s been doing well with it.

She hasn’t forgotten to feed him once and she’s taken him out on his walks every single day.

It hasn’t seemed to satisfy her though and she’s wanting to do more and more on her own.

Last time Patience and I went out on a date, Felicity wanted to babysit Patrick and Gemma. Maybe next year, for short periods of time during the day, but not now and not at night.

She was very unimpressed when we had her grandparents babysit instead.

Kendal said she sulked for half the night, before finally being lured into a game of Don’t Wake The Llama.

Apparently, Lake lost the game, which Felicity and Patrick got a kick out of.

By the time Felicity is old enough to babysit, she’ll probably be begging us to call her grandparents!

She loves Gemma and she and Patrick really bond over their shared love of games. But once her social world starts to open up a little bit, I’m sure she’s going to get more tempting offers.

Patrick and Andrew are still best friends and Patrick has fortunately resisted getting into too much trouble with him.

Patience is best friends with Andrew’s mother, so Andrew will always be around one way or another. Patrick might as well learn to handle him well.

So far, Patrick seems to keep Andrew out of trouble more often than Andrew gets Patrick into trouble.

Patrick is a pretty confident kid and won’t normally go along with doing something stupid just because someone else thinks he should.

Both he and Andrew have become good buddies with Theo Nihill this year and I think that’s helping as well.

Theo is a pretty sensible type, so now, whenever Andrew wants to get up to mischief, it’s two against one.

I feel guilty for not being around as much lately. Poor Patience is shouldering basically all of the parenting load at the moment. Even when I am home, I'm still working.

I’m missing out on a lot. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with Patience and the kids on a weeknight.

I’m looking to move into an area of law I haven’t had much to do with before - entertainment law. I guess seeing Patience working in entertainment for as long as I’ve known her, I’ve developed my own interests in certain aspects of it. It's a big move, so I have to prepare.

Patience has been amazing about the whole thing and hasn’t complained at all.

She keeps reminding me that her career has had times where she wasn’t able to be around all the time as well, so it’s only fair.

I still think she’s got the tougher job here. Much of the time when she’s been working a lot, it’s been weekends, when I was home anyway, or nights, when it’s only a couple of hours until they head off to bed.

Patience has had them home with her all summer, as well as dealing with other kids coming over for many play dates and sleepovers. Many times, she'll head off to work after they all head home for the evening.

Then again, Patience is the one who wanted 10 kids, so I think may just genuinely find that kind of thing pretty easy.

When I do get time with the kids these days, I appreciate it more than ever now. I actually got to watch a movie with them the other night and it was great.

I can’t wait until things settle down a bit more and I can be more of a present husband and father again.

Notes:

• Title is from Kentucky Cocktail by Pavement.
• Rob did finally get his promotion, as did Patience. Hers was easy though, as she skilled up a long time ago. Being a former townie, Rob is not as highly skilled and he had so many skill points to get to this level. The poor guy really was locked away in the study every night! Fortunately, he's Level 9 now, with only one skill point to Level 10. I'm going to let him take it easy for a while. ;) 
• On the plus size, these two rake in so much dough! This was an unusually long session for me (9 days) but they started with about $70,000 and ended with over $100,000. And Patience only works three days a week. They want for nothing. 
• I'm really happy about Theo and Patrick's friendship, because it appears to have happened completely without my intervention. I have no pictures of them together before this update, yet somehow, they're BFFs? I love that kind of thing when it makes sense - Theo is only a year older, so it's conceivable that he'd be friends with Patrick and Andrew.