We're All Mad Here

Come ON, kids. Can’t you just get out of the way?

The background music in our house is the sound of screaming toddlers. Jin gets the worst of it, and one night it drove her outside to get some peace and quiet.

She got more than she bargained for.

But she didn’t miss much.

When she got back, they were still screaming.

But I guess you couldn’t blame her for passing out that time.

Hetal and I kinda didn’t notice she was gone. I have to say that Hetal is one hot pregnant lady.

Though we were both too exhausted to really do anything about it, so we went to bed.

We woke up to this strange noise. It was someone rustling through our stuff.

And she took our rocking chair!!

Hetal almost lost her mind. Not the rocking chair! She was going to have a baby, and now there wouldn’t be a rocking chair! The world was ending!

She was a little bit hormonal.

While I was frantically calling the police about the intruder, she went into another room and zapped up the towel by the sink. What will we do without a way to dry our hands? We’ll have wet hands, that’s what! Oh, the humanity!

And then it turned out she had a legal right to be there. It turns out we didn’t pay our bills. Whoops.

The next day, Ayden called Jin up for another date.

It was good for her to get out of the house, even if Ayden is kind of boring.

She found a great way to have fun.

Then she told Ayden she had to go home early because she was exhausted.

And she made it all the way to her own bed and slept there! Without passing out! Jin is just made of steel.

The house was filled with kitties. Which is a wonderful thing, but it was a lot of little mouths to feed.

Don’t think that’s complaining, though, because it is totally not. Complaining. I mean, how can you complain about this?

Or this??

And then sweet Peanut had a birthday!

Isn’t he magnificent?

Branden left for his first day of school! Well, really his second day, but it was the first day he actually showed up.

He’s such a responsible little man.

I had the day off, so I tried to focus on one of the least fun parts of being a mom. I swear, I did everything I could to get Christof to do something on that potty.

But nothing! It’s enough to make you crazy!

Finally, I got the twins someplace where they could have some fun in a way that would *not involve us*.

And they did have a good time. Faces like this are why I don’t just run off and join the circus.

Look at them play together! They’re both going to be geniuses. I’m sure of it.

Hetal and I had other plans.

The last couple of times we’d tried to woohoo, something had come up. But this time for sure. The toddlers were playing in their room. Branden was at school. Jin was asleep. What could go wrong?

But when we got to the top of the stairs, Hetal stopped. “Wait,” she said. “I think can feel the baby!”

“Right, right,” I said. “I’m sure you can feel the baby. Can we get to the bedroom?”

“No,” she said. “I mean I can feel the baby coming! Right now!”

I guess this means no woohoo for a while.

I figured now was a pretty good time to celebrate my birthday. I mean, I wasn’t going to get my birthday present, but at least I’d get another kid out of it, right?

Branden came upstairs to watch.

All this parenting stress and no woohoo is really bad for your hair.

Well gathered in the hallway to gawp at Hetal giving birth. It looked really painful. Wow, I’m glad it wasn’t me.

But it took too long, so we all got tired and went to bed.

But at last our fourth (and FINAL!) child was born.

Wait, don’t pay attention to that. You might have *thought* you saw a pale-skinned boy, but you really saw a teal-skinned girl.

This is Deanne.

Hetal laid her in her crib.

The twins were so busy playing peekaboo, they didn’t even notice.

Hetal relaxed after the stresses of childbirth with Dinah. I approve.

So you’re the new baby, huh?

Wow, you’re so sweet.

Anyone who tells this beautiful little girl what I said about her before she was born will see their house burn down. Think I’m bluffing? Don’t try me.

———-

Pregnancies: 2 + 1 = 3
Total Babies: 3 + 1 = 4

Passing out: 4 + 1 = 5
Repo visits: 0 + 1 = 1

Cheats: 0 + 1 = 1

So, my first ever repo visit!

The backstory here is that the mailbox glitched out. This lot had one of the Late Night high-rise mailboxes out front in its own little shelter. I’ve lived in places that did it that way, and I liked it. But I think around the time of the University patch, it stopped working. I’m not entirely sure. I tried all sorts of things — resetting it, moving it around, etc. The news of the bills came up, and even though Allison couldn’t get the bill from the mailbox, the late bill warning dropped it into her inventory for me. So I instructed her to pay it by clicking the bill in her inventory. It dropped out of her queue, and I did it again. And I then I thought it succeeded and all was well.

So I spent the last of their savings on those two strollers to go to the park. And that morning the repo-lady showed up.

Also, I cheated. The first kid born was a boy with Allison’s skin tone and Hetal’s hair and eyes AGAIN. After much grumbling, I used MasterController to create a new baby. This is not a particularly game-changing cheat, and I’m not sure I’m willing to take a point hit for it. (Because this is totally about the points, right? I haven’t even decided how/if I’m going to score the scoresheet.) But I’m going to record them.

Hetal tried about four times to woohoo with Allison, and they couldn’t make it to their bed. With that and the mailbox thing, plus a whole sequence from the pic at the beginning where Hetal and Christof got into a face off at the head of the stairs and neither of them could route anywhere until I reset Hetal, had me ready to dump the condo and move. But I discovered that the door was “in use” by Branden, despite the fact that Branden was in bed downstairs. I had to delete and replace the door to fix that, and while I was at it, I enlarged the landing a bit at the expense of Hetal and Allison’s bedroom. That, and deleting the mailbox and letting the game replace it with a standard one, and the lot is functioning again.

I’ve become kind of stupidly attached to this condo. But also, the Wonderlands have been living hand-to-mouth, and I’m not sure they can afford one much better.