The next morning, life went on. It was strange not having Chastity in the house any more, but the family knew she wouldn't want them to be sad for her, and so they weren't. She'd lived a spectacular life, had ten wonderful children, and she'd passed a lot of love on to them. Giovanni was thoughtful at the sink while he washed his hands early that morning, considering everything that his mother had accomplished. He hoped that Lacey would be able to accomplish as much during her lifetime, but she hadn't gotten off to the easiest of starts, and was already a full-fledged adult. Nobody would ever compare to their mother. Giovanni was sure of it.
Lacey, on the other hand, was feeling good about things. Her aspiration had been difficult thus far, but she was confident that she would complete it before she turned elder, as long as she kept moving up in her career. The Astronaut career had proven easy for her to move up with, and she still always had her painting to fall back on. Soon she'd be painting the next generation of heirs for the legacy as well. The thought excited her as she sat down to eat her fish tacos and consider what the future could hold now that the house was a little more open to her having the children she dreamed of having.
She and Giovanni argued about it over their breakfast.
Giovanni: Let me stay in the house and help you out. With Mom gone, you could do with someone to help you look after the little ones, at least until Bryson gets a bit older.
Lacey: We're going to be fine, Giovanni. We don't need you here, and you're only going to get in the way in the long run.
Giovanni: You're not as young as you used to be. It's not like you're going to manage to have ten children before you turn elder.
Lacey: We'll see about that.
Giovanni: <laughs> Then you're going to need my help even more!
Afterward, to prove a point, Lacey went upstairs to feed her newborn son, Reuben. He was a good baby who rarely fussed, and she appreciated that he let her get more sleep than the others. Her pregnancy with him had been difficult to the point she felt sure that she was going to have a girl. Oh, well. She loved Reuben just the same as she would have if he'd managed to be a girl. He had his father's features, and that was one of the things that she loved about him.
Daniel, still in uniform, helped out too. He wasn't the greatest father, so focused on his career and his aspirations that he didn't always see that his children needed him, but he enjoyed his time with the boys as well.
Very soon, Reuben grew up into a handsome young man who resembled his father in many ways. He became a Whiz Kid with the convenient Bookworm trait.
Daniel still hadn't changed out of his uniform by the time that he sat down to have dinner with his son. If Reuben played his cards right, Daniel told him, he could also be a Bodybuilder in the Astronaut career field. Reuben just wrinkled his nose and told his father that he wasn't sure he wanted to be tied down to just one thing. He still had plenty of time to explore his options, didn't he?
When things broke down around the house, Giovanni had taken over where his father left out, repairing the broken appliances. They seemed to break with increasing frequency, and it was a lot of work to keep up with them, but at least it took his mind off of his mother's being gone and the fact that his sister wanted him to move out. It seemed like they needed him around here, and if he could just prove that, maybe they'd allow him to finish his aspiration and contribute more to the family's deviance policy.
Before she knew it was happening, Lacey was running on the treadmill pregnant again! She and Daniel found time whenever they could to work out together, since they both had to increase their fitness for their careers.
There's an odd gap in images here. I'm nearly certain that I took pictures at the hospital with the birth of the third child but apparently something went wrong. Forgive me!
When Lacey and Daniel returned from the hospital with Stephanie, the first girl of generation 3 (thanks to a strawberry a day!), Paul and Chastity were waiting for them! It was great for Lacey to see her parents together this way to greet her when she came home with the first potential heir to their legacy. She offered both of them a big smile as she introduced them to their first granddaughter, so that Chastity could see that her legacy would go on and not end in its third generation.
Chastity responded with a tight hug that Lacey could almost feel.
Chastity: I'm so proud of you Lacey.
After trying for another girl, Lacey sat down to play some chess with her Whiz Kid son, Reuben. She wanted all of her children to make it through their childhood with good grades and completed aspirations. It meant a lot to her to be able to contribute to their growing up years and to be there for them wherever she could. Her career was important, as the money was important, but what was money if the family wasn't there to support her when she needed them?
Not long after, she found out she was "in the club" again!
This time around, Lacey was
starving. She'd never been so hungry in her entire life! She sat at the bar and munched on some salad while Giovanni practiced his Mixology skill again. He was worried about not doing so well in the Mixology career because he'd had some problems with his high school education and was now at a D-level.
Stephanie grew up beautiful! She also aged into a Whiz Kid with the Music Lover trait.
I missed a picture of her aging up because the game is super glitchy. It started with Chastity and there have been some odd problems ever since. She teleported straight out of the bassinet.
Giovanni aged to young adult! Now the question would really come: Would Lacey allow him to stay in the house?
In the end she agreed to allow him to stick around for
a while. She'd tell him (so she said) when it was time for him to move to Oasis Springs with their brothers.
And then it was Byrson's turn! Daniel had to make three cakes because people kept taking pieces out of them before he could get them to the table, and they wound up using two sets of candles on one cake to age both kids up. How embarrassing!
Bryson felt pretty good about how he grew up! He gained the hot-headed trait and became a Renaissance Sim.
Lacey sat and ate while lecturing Bryson about the importance of good grades in high school. She was probably wasting her breath, considering that he was already studying for the next day at school, but she wanted to make
sure that he didn't end up like Sylas and Giovanni. It was important to her that her children complete school with an A so that they could get a leg up in their careers, if they chose to go to work in a traditional career track.
Already huge with her fourth pregnancy, Lacey went to make some soup for the family. It reminded her of her mother slaving over the stove to feed the family and it made her sad that she only saw Chastity occasionally now. They'd been close when her mother was alive, but now that she was gone it seemed as though Lacey could have done more for her mother. It hurt to think that she might leave her own children in the same situation, and she determined to be sure that she would spend more time with her children than she had with her mother, even after they moved out. She'd started to re-think kicking Giovanni out of the legacy home.
Stephanie spent her time up in the playroom experimenting on the lab station until her father told her to be careful not to burn the house down. She'd be "grounded for life" if she set a fire on "that thing" and she just rolled her eyes. He was an athlete, what did she expect him to know about her Whiz Kid aspiration? Such physical people didn't understand what it was like for someone whose greatest wish was to become a more intelligent person.
Under threat of grounding, she headed out to explore some of the rocky outcrops around the house. Originally she'd wanted to go looking for discarded toys, but there weren't any fallen logs to look in, so she got out her chisel to break apart the rocks and see what she could find. It was a small haul in the end, but she got a few things that the family didn't have yet, and added them to the family's collections.
She was still out when Lacey went into labor with baby number four. She'd eaten plenty of strawberries since she'd found out that she was pregnant, and she was sure that this time it was going to be a girl. The same ghostly doctor greeted her at the door as had delivered her previous two children.
And Melinda was born! When they returned home, Paul and Chastity were waiting for them again.
Another weird game glitch. The game didn't save, I had to play through the pregnancy again, and there are some missing images, probably due to me not hitting F10 hard enough when I went to capture them. Ugh.
And baby number five is on the way already!
