narrated by Greg Pons
You might think, if you didn't know us too well, that my wife Joan and I are pretty close to being empty nesters. We sent two more kids off to college recently--the big boys, Joe and Seth...
Our seventh child, Brian, became a teenager...
And our oldest, Sarah, is about to give us a grandchild!
But I think Joan has been feeling at loose ends since she lost her job at the magazine a few years back. They
fired her, if you can believe that, after she worked there for years without giving them any trouble. They made up some cock-and-bull story about how she made a mistake that cost them a lot of money, but I think they just figured she was nearing retirement age and if they sacked her they wouldn't have to pay a pension.
She still writes her novels, but I guess that doesn't fill her days enough.
So she called the social worker who arranged our
last three adoptions and got us doing this "long-term foster care"
gig. Here's Lisa--she was our first placement.
And Starla was the second. Of course, I know
what "long-term foster care" really means. It means that in six
months or a year or so, once I've gotten good and attached to these girls, Joan
is going to give me a speech about how if they're going to stay with us for the
long haul anyway we might as well make it official. And I'll agree like I
always do.
It's not that I mind kids, but at our age they should be grandkids, so we can hand them back at the end of the day and go enjoy a well-deserved night of uninterrupted sleep!
Admittedly, the older kids do help, though we insist that their studies and even hobbies come first. Jeannie even insists on sharing a room with the little girls, though we've got plenty of space. Says she misses Sarah and it's easy enough to get her studying done while watching to make sure Lisa doesn't climb out of the crib after bedtime.
Even Joan's mom, who's nearly 80 and getting quite frail, makes the effort to come over and see the new girls. She was thrilled when Lisa started calling her "Grandma"--Lisa's number 21 or 22 or something for her, but she acts like it's Sarah all over again.
So I fall into line (military training teaches you that almost as well as wives do!) and make sure the little girls are as well-provided-for as all the others. Getting Starla into private school was easy enough. I know all the headmasters and they know me, or at least know my checkbook--I've probably put all their kids through college with the tuition I've paid over the years!
Oh, and we got a dog. What we need a dog for with nine kids I'll never know, but Joan read something on the Simternet about dogs being good for visually impaired children, so next thing I know I was being sent to the pet store to pick up Dawn. Starla seems to like the creature at any rate, and if Joan takes a shine to it as well maybe I can convince her to get a puppy instead when she inevitably starts pestering me about another kid!
Notes:
- Brian is a Pleasure Sim, LTW 50 Dream Dates. Ugh.
- Greg will lose the kid debate one last time, and then I am never doing the 10 Kids IW again. It is way too much work--though not as much as 50 Dream Dates!
- According to the timestamp, I took the pictures for this update in March of 2013--about when my son was conceived, and he can walk and talk now! I obviously need to stay on top of this blog better.
This was a good morning read for me, along with my coffee, thank you!
ReplyDeleteWow, 10 kids... never done that :-) But I really love playing big households, especially when there are children. Toddlers, though, are not my favourite Sims, he he
I have done 10 kids a couple of times before, both with Elixir of Life and with multiple adoptions. This time it seems to be taking much longer, though...perhaps because I've been playing this neighborhood for three years!
DeleteI think my favorite is households with 5 or 6 Sims. Less is boring, but more is too chaotic for me to micromanage as I would like. :) And toddlers are indeed a lot of work--I think one of the reasons I never took to The Sims 3 is because you can't neglect your toddlers or they get negative traits. In Sims 2 they are perfectly happy to get a million skill points at the peg box, and that serves them better than learning to walk anyway. ;)
Ha, I have never done that 50 Dream Dates LTW! I always pretend I'm going to try and then never bother. Still not as bad as 50 First Dates though. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd wow, Joan has no intentions of winding back the parental gig, does she? She could end up with grandkids and kids close to the same age!
I've done it once in this 'hood and it was definitely not worth the work. (The memory doesn't even have cool flavor text. Some programmer was totally phoning it in that day...)
DeleteI know a few people in real life who have big families like that. And my own parents have "only" four kids, but spread out over a couple of decades--they adopted the second pair after my older sister and I were both adults. So my little brother is actually almost exactly 2 years older than my son. Makes hand-me-downs easy. :)