Chapter 10: Our Pamphlets Are Impressionist Poetry
Kite’s education begins in earnest. With so little of my skilling waiting, and between rallying the troops and Miko and I’s work cycles, we can try and give Kite the best toddlerhood possible. I’ll bet you good money we make it, too.
“C’mon, Kite! Stack those blocks. No, no, kiddo. A little to the… This is silly.”
He laughs, as if in confirmation. One cannot coach block-stacking, only explain the details. The refined and essential details, natch. Like that that side’s orange. We can keep that up until he’s tired of blocks.
If I’m going to be super honest, more honest than I really want to be to most people, I don’t think I really know what teaching someone to talk should sound like. I mean, the parenting guides on the internet are vague about this and also have lame opinions. Maybe I should just try talking normally; he’ll probably catch on.
“Kite, listen: I’m going to be counting on you to do your part as time goes by, OK?”
OK, that’s maybe a little strong for a toddler. More explaining.
“You’ll make all sorts of friends, and be...Uh. Good. At your job. I guess. You’ll be a good adult?”Real smooth, Kestral. I mean that sarcastically this time. His eyes light up.
“Goo?” He asks, insistently enough that it’s not babble.
“Of course you’ll do a good job. Are you kidding? And you’ll learn skills, too. Wanna try saying skills?”
“Skis! Skis!”
“Eh, close enough for horseshoes and handgrenades -- and don’t let your Ka-san know I was saying a word like ‘handgrenades,’ OK?”
“Hangade!” The scamp.
“...I guess we’re safe for this second. But a skill is something you get to be the best at, and get better and better.” I lean in to share a secret, just because I think he’ll get a kick. “We’re working on a skill right now.”
“Heehee yay!”
“Alright, Kestral,” says Miko, shooing me off for a bit. “All work and no play’s no way for a kid! Come here, you! It’s time for you to go on a ride!”
She scoops him up; the house echoes with the sound of them laughing, the vrrooom, vrooom of a pair of airplanes flying about the nursery. We’re a team in this, too… This turned out pretty good, I think. To keep my top-notch understating in play.
While I’m on my own, I catch sight of something happening up by the waterfall. People come up there, but...
“So I tell my waiter my soup is too hot! And he says ‘Ice’ll cool it right down!” And he takes the soup, and I say, ‘I’m going to wait right here while you’s’ll cool it right down!”
“Oh, that’s hysterical!” The girl, whose name escapes me but whose age does not, laughs.
“You think? I’m planning on putting it in my next routine, but I’m not really sure how I feel about dialect humor...The road to comedy is long and paved with whoopie cushions.” He shrugs, before heading back in, a little social time spent.
“Jonathan Zest, you total cad (thanks for that, by the by). That girl is a teen!” I comment at him as he comes back in, before he can escape to the comfort of his room. He could at least wait a little.
“What?” He stares at me. Then he laughs. “Look, I’m not...Well, I’m kind of freewheeling, but even I can talk to a girl without false intentions. Sometimes, I want to practice my comedy by making someone laugh.”
Oh.
“Oh. Sorry. Well, knock ‘em dead out there, then.”
We have Ulrike over that night, and this isn’t a super great choice on our parts, because as Miko heads downstairs, I hear Ulrike say…
“Hey, Miko. Looking fantastic this evening.” She gives a sort of low laugh that I’ve heard from Akira’s bedroom a few times now. My heart goes clench.
“Why did people wait until I was in love to start flirting with me? It’s unfair!” Miko throws a mock-pout over my way, where I’m preparing some food. Not because anyone in this house will be hungry for an age, but because I need the practice.
“They say a woman in love is at her most charming,” I answer, seizing the flirting day! Take that! “But you’re always the utmost of adorable, so it is a profound mystery why everyone’s waited until now, and I didn’t have to fight a single bear for your love.”
“Oh, that would have been great. But you’ve already won, so we can’t get a bear now…”
“So I’ll pass, sorry Ulrike,” she shakes her head to the baffled-looking artist. She glances back at me, sighing a little in relief. I give her a thumbs-up.
“Thanks, babe. Oh, but...Ulrike. Isn’t Akira going to go ballistic if he knows?” I ask.
“Serves him right, sometimes.”
Miko had just come down to get a book to read to Kite before bed, tucking him in up to his chin. He wriggles under the covers like a puppy trying to get cozy.
And she happily reads him a story, the tale of a brother and a sister -- and while the sister was ill, the brother had to go travelling.
“First he went to Brindleton Bay, where the sea goes boom, boom against a big gold shore. And the boy loved the way the sea looked. Did Mom tell you what color the sea is?”
“...Bue?” He asks, very soft and quiet, the word a little uncertain.
“That’s right! And because he loved the sea so much, he drew a picture. And he sighed, because he wished his sister could go to the sea.”
I think she sees Kite looking a little worried up over his blanket, because she laughs and adds,
“Don’t worry! She’ll be happy when he comes home.”
“
Yes,” He says, insistently: Yes, she should be. Or, Yes, you better be telling the truth, Ka-san, I think. You’ve got to make the most of a toddler-sized vocabulary by having a few bludgeoning words.
And the boy in the story went to Granite Falls, and to Selvadorada, and to Oasis Springs, and to Windenburg,
“Where he saw the cutest little house and the sweetest little boy who lived there!” Miko closes the storybook decisively.
“Who?”
“You, of course! And he drew a picture of our house, too,” declares Miko, showering him with tender little kisses as he giggles. This is not not very productive for getting him to sleep or keeping me from giving cavities. “And at last, he went back home. And his sister was so happy. But the brother was sad, and he said to her, ‘I wish you could go to all the places I have seen.’ But the sister told him, ‘I have! I have seen them all, because your pictures can take me there!’ And they were very happy… But I think what made her happiest was knowing that all the time, when he saw those pretty things, he was thinking of her with love.”
Kite had drifted off by then, the nursery falling totally still. Which is very wow. She gave him a kiss and walk out to the big open space of the second floor, where I had been listening in. He really is learning a lot from things like this. I’m glad.
Kite had drifted off by then, the nursery falling totally still. Which is very wow. She gave him a kiss and walk out to the big open space of the second floor, where I had been listening in. He really is learning a lot from things like this. I’m glad.
Because it’s good for the museum’s value and making sure he can get everything he needs to, of course. OKThat’sEnoughOfThat, I’ve got a report about the house!
With the nursery set away, I figured we could make a few adjustments to the house: starting with actually making the start of a proper kitchen and dining room. Tres fancy! You know, for a kind of lame value of fancy. We’ll probably keep building it up, since it’s just a room with a table for now, but money’s tight. We move a few things around – and this isn’t even the final form of our stairs-bathroom arrangement. The computer desk got moved upstairs, we’ll build a proper study for it later. Maybe the kid’ll care more about books than I do.
But the kitchen’s enough for now. Not perfect, but enough for this: the last dish of my path to maxing cooking. I have all three of my skills done, and everything’s just a matter of friendships and promotions and that last party (
thanks Zest) now. And still as a YA! Who’s the best? C’est moi.
Other news on that front: Zest finally gets to planting the Orchid and Pomegranate for our deathflower splicing purposes. We’re so close to having our ingredients ready to go!
Of course, there’s still the future to build.
It can’t all be glamorous. The future takes its potty training price.
“Kes?” Miko’s voice rings out. “Why is our baby eating Gumbo?”
As if that wasn’t obvious.
“Because it’s good gumbo. Also, we have about 24 – ah, sorry, Kite, 23 servings of it.” It’d been my training food, because it really improved my skills a lot.
“…OK, then. I’ll just… go get my smudgey boy a paper towel.”
“I wanna towel!”
Of course, there are times when even with us both doing our best, Kite gets left by himself. Maybe he’s even a little relieved for some quiet.
Or maybe he can’t bear to be without his moms! When I got home, he told me -- out of the blue, and totally serious-faced…
“It’s island.”
What an odd kid. I asked him what he meant, and he didn’t answer, just returning to his blocks.
I don’t talk enough about what Miko’s been up to in her own right. She’s still in politics for now, collecting donations. While I know she wants to try other things… I know she’s passionate about this work.
“Have you stopped and thought about the sims left behind?” She asks Katarina. The reaction she gets is more puzzled than enthused.
“Left behind by what?”
“Existentially left behind! ...I guess. In this world, we demand a sim pick their goals early, and that initial choice impacts the rest of their life! But sometimes, this doesn’t work! And so sims are left behind!... Is how I’m thinking about it, anyway,” she says, her politician smile being replaced by something softer and more tentative. “Our pamphlets are impressionist poetry, which isn’t super helpful. But there are all sorts of ways people get left behind by the world. And with a little help from everyone, we can ensure no sim gets left behind!”
“Oh, gosh! Here, have some. I know how sad strays are; it’s hard to imagine for a sim.”
“Thank you very much!”
She’s so earnest that I think she’s really good at work like this.
Kite’s getting a little more adventurous with the house all the time -- I guess he’s gotten tired of how empty the second floor is.
There is an abomination on my counter.
“Akira, what is that?”
“Well, to be recognized as a real curator, I need to finish a collection,” he answers, reaching down and popping open another little party favor. He has a mountain of them. Sigh.
“...That didn’t answer my question even slightly.”
“It’s a Christmas cracker prize. They cost ten simoleans each, so I can just lay a bunch out of the stuff on a counter instead of running around for fossils and jewels, and I only have to collect all 8!” He grins like this is a grand accomplishment.
“…It looks like a terrible monstracity and hey, are you lazing your way through an aspiration?” Actually, I should take a note of that for someone eventually, you know, if we need a rush job. He gives me a frustrated look, letting a groan strain through his teeth.
“Look, I’m tired of waiting, and my feet. Are sore.” Some people. Just have no value to their dreams. This is absurd. And yet… Here we are. He’s just going to pop those things all day.
Gino decides to invite his three toddlers over the next day -- it keeps them out of Mila’s hair for a while, and he gets to see them. There’s another baby -- yes, another, her name’s Carla, but she’s still just a newborn. Really, all he does is fish when he’s not with his family, so this is a nice opportunity.
“Heya, son! Ready to have some fun today?”
“Daddy!”
To be honest, they all kind of look alike; I can’t quite keep track of which little guy’s Soren and which one’s Julian. Kate has the straight hair, though.
“And the better dancing skills! You going to let her show you up, Julian?”
“No! No!”
After their little dance party, it was story-time. And time for the other upside of having them over: Kite can get going on some friendships.
...Well, nearly alone. Kite works his way onto the couch, neither sure how to talk to someone new.
“...Hi,” Kite tries after a second.
“Hi-hi,”she answers. There’s a long silence. Kite’s shyer than I thought he’d be, but like I said -- he’ll toughen up. But for now, it’s kind of cute. If I have to get fire and brimstone with any bullies when he starts going to school, well, those children better be ready for terror.
“Know wha?” He asks her.
“Wha?”
“Icken Butt!”
The two descend into frantic giggles, wild with delight at a joke that really never has meaning, but especially not to two toddlers. I need to ask Zest not to use jokes with him yet. He needs a healthy sense of humor. But for the move itself? That’s my boy. It’s way too early to arrange a marriage or anything, but if Kite could keep this family close, for a while – if we could watch over them – that’d be real swell.
“Play dolls!” He suggests, ushering her over to the one toy outside his room.
If Kite did decide he liked her, she’s got green eyes, that’s pretty great. I’m just thinking ahead. Maybe later, we’ll have a real playdate for the kids.
And when all the dust settles… Kite’s already responding to his feelings, like an immortal sim ought! You do what you need to, kiddo.
“Goo’ job. Good.”
