Chapter 23: Children and CareersGiulia went into labour in the kitchen while Ash was at work. The winter gnome seemed quite disturbed.
After the usual face-pulling interval, she gave birth to Châtaigne.
She calmly went off to put her new daughter in the cot, ignoring the second baby who’d just appeared on the kitchen floor. No wonder Olive was crying.
Fortunately, Ash arrived home at this point and fed his second daughter before tucking her up in the hastily-purchased second cot.
Now that they were parents, both Ash and Giulia popped wishes to get married, so the following day they called a babysitter (oddly, a clone of Sequoia and called Tami, like an earlier dog) and went out for the day. After taking most of the day to find a suitably picturesque location, Ash proposed.
Then they both swam off into the sunset, oblivious to the lurking sharks.
I’d planned for them to marry almost immediately but the swimming took so long that it was dark by the time they were dressed again – and the twins were getting distressed. Sequoia-clone was a useless babysitter. The next day, there was a thunderstorm. All day. So no wedding again. In fact, it was starting to occur to me that Giulia really couldn’t afford the extra time off work. Although she’d immediately become best friends with her boss (thank you, social networking skill), he consistently refused to give her a promotion, however much she sweet-talked him and however high her performance bar was. Must be his frugal trait. She was going to have to go to work to get anywhere. For now, she was still on maternity leave and doing most of the baby care while Ash concentrated on his career – although she had a somewhat unusual approach. Leaving two hungry babies crying in their cots while you play keepy-uppy in the kitchen is not generally recommended by parenting books.
Soon, it was the twins’ toddler birthday. Ash was at work, Olive was asleep, but Guilia and Châtaigne were both wide awake and happy. It seemed like a good time to make a start on the toddler skills. Or not, as it turned out.
The only thing more useless than a Sim around a fire is a Sim holding a baby. Giulia couldn’t do anything except ‘go here’. She had an option to put Châtaigne down on the floor but the action kept cancelling. The only thing to do was to wait for the fire brigade. Considering they were right next door, they took an amazingly long time to arrive. Finally, there were sirens outside and a firefighter rushed in to deal with the blaze, pausing only to tell Giulia how hot her fiancé was.
Ash, unaware of the near-disaster, finished his shift and got his final promotion.
The poor man came home all pleased with himself and got an earful.
Finally, Giulia went back to work and Ash, now on a one-day-a-week schedule, took over most of the childcare.
Ash: “When you grow up, you could play for the Llamas.”
Châtaigne (thinks):
Hrumph…
Ash: “You’d earn lots of money!”
Châtaigne (thinks):
Money? That sounds more interesting.
Ash: “Or there are other sports, like boxing…”
Châtaigne’s first word. “Boxing!”
I can’t wait for this one to grow up.
Giulia still managed to fit in some teaching of toddler skills between work shifts, maxing athletic and working ‘at home’ at the library.
And the girls had plenty of time for play.
It was just as well that they’d become friends. When they started school they had options for ‘normal effort’, ‘work hard’ or ‘slack off’ but nothing involving friends. They were going to have to be self-sufficient.
They only had one day at school and then it was Leisure Day. They spent the whole day outside, playing, swimming…
…and relaxing.
Ash and Giulia kept an eye on the kids, took the odd Motive Mobile trip and then spent the night enjoying each other’s company…
…ending with embarrassment all round at dawn when Olive wandered out into the garden. Even though she was on the other side of the lot, with the house in between, she somehow knew what her parents had been up to in the hot tub.
Giulia’s career was still going extremely slowly and Franco still wouldn’t give her a promotion outside the office. She was just about to get to level 8 when she was arrested for the first time. Her watcher may possibly have become very cross at this point. With both of her required skills maxed, she whiled away the summer days perfecting her diving and enjoying the great outdoors.
All too soon, Ash and Giulia’s elder birthday rolled around. They took the girls for a day out at Mick’s.
Admittedly not the most obvious venue for a family outing but autumn had just arrived and it was tipping down outside.
Then, on the way home, it became clear that it wasn’t Giulia’s birthday after all.
