Thursday, September 3, 2009

Whirlwind Infancy



"Who's your daddy.... who's your baby...."











Last time we were in Riverview, there was a distinct lack of cowardice from Sherman, Kettie split her time between writing trashy fanfic and rumpling the bedsheets with her husband, and Rhoda beat our happy couple to the punch and provided Ma Bagley a grandchild before Kettie and Sherman.

Not to be put off by this, Kettie and Sherman continued with their plans to increment their family by one.


Hey! I'm having a child here, not running an If - Then loop.













While everything went well with Kettie's pregnancy, apparently everything didn't go exactly perfectly. I didn't get to choose both trails for the newest addition to the family, but I did get to choose one. Oh, and of course we had to name the rugrat too.

I can't believe you named my child Sloan. Isn't that the name of the chick in Ferris Bueller?

Umm... I think so. Honestly, I didn't even think of that when I named him.

Hmmrph.

Anyway, Sloan was born with the Friendly trait...

Just like his daddy.

And a roll of the dice decreed that his second trait would be excitable. I don't think I've had an excitable sim yet.













I wonder why that is.

Hmmm... *looks uncomfortable* Maybe because in my other hoods I have a proliferation of evil sims. I didn't make them that way -- well, not most of them, just the green one -- they were born that way.

*raises an eyebrow* Mmm-hmmm. Right.

Anyway, after leaving the hospital following a swift and apparently problem-free delivery, Kettie and company climbed into a cab and headed for home. I thought this was a cute shot of the three of them... although Sherman does look a little shell-shocked there.

He's just tired.













Well, give me just a moment to get you some nursery items purchased and three of you will be able to hit the hay.

*sighs* I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you haven't purchased any baby furniture yet.

Neither your nor Sherman spun up any wants for any. I'd wait until you do, but I would really prefer you not to raise your kids on the kitchen floor. This isn't TS2.












Sherman, I know you're a new parent and all, but I'm pretty sure they explained to you somewhere that the bottle needs to go in your child's mouth in order for them to drink.

I tried to tell him.

Sherman: *coos and talks baby talk to Sloan*


Now, in my other households, the moment a baby's portrait dips below solid green the poor thing gets zergswarmed by residents (and guests) trying to care for him. This tends to lead to none of the baby's needs being taken care of and other mass chaos. So, needless to say, while I was excited about the newest little addition to the Bagley household I wasn't looking forwards to the swarms of people trying to care for him all at once.

I shouldn't have worried.














After all, Grandma Ma was on the job. Seriously, as soon as little Sloan popped up in her queue, everyone else quit trying to head up to take care of him.

"Well of course. It's a grandmother's prerogative to have first dibs on taking care of the grandkids and all."

And a lot of new parents see grandparents-in-residence as live-in babysitters.

*Grandma Ma delivers "The Look"*

Heh. Okay, so you've made it abundantly clear to the happy couple that you're not in-house childcare.

"Only when I want to be."














Hey hey hey! While I want you guys to have a spare or two, do you think you could wait until Sloan's at least a toddler?

Guys?

*sigh*

If you get pregnant, I hope you have twins. Triplets even.














Gratuitous cute picture of mom and toddler.














Okay, we've had our cute overdose for the next few chapters, so... moving along.

Just as Kettie needs to write reports for the journalism career, Sherman needs to write reports for... um... whatever position he has with the police. And like Kettie, I could have him wander around and question the neighbors, or... I could just have him rummage through The Don's trash.

Guess which one I chose *cackle*















So after scampering back to the house with his trash and other assorted discoveries, I sent Sherman off to Ma's room to type it all up on her laptop. I was hoping that since he was good friends with Ruby, and that Ruby lives at Don's place (she is his wife, after all) that the info he found in the trash was hers. No such luck though. It was still all Don.













Boy, you really have it made, don't you?

Whatever do you mean?

I mean, here you are, a new mom, and not having to lift a finger to take care of your little one. Other new moms run themselves ragged trying to handle and cope with everything. But not you. You just kick back, relax, and write your trashy novels. *chuckle*

Hey now! I've tried to help out with my son, but he's got an over-possessive grandma! Other than the occasional snuggle or two, Sherman and I haven't been able to get near him.














Is that true? Are you a Helicopter Granny?

"I'm just making sure my only grandson is well and properly cared for. Not that I doubt my daughter-in-law's childcare skills or anything, but..."

Only grandson? Did you forget that your daughter gave birth to a son not too long before Sloan was born? Remember little Israel McDermott?

"Hmmph. Well then, I'm just making sure that my grandson and heir to the Bagley legacy is well cared for."

I don't know if Sloan is going to be the heir yet! I'm sure Kettie and Sherman aren't done popping 'em out.

"And I'd like to thank you for keeping with the family tradition."

Family tradition?

"That boys in the Bagley line carry S names. Like my dear Sam. Sherman. And now Sloan. You obviously wouldn't have given him that name if he wasn't destined to be heir."

*sigh*

"Now that the future of the Bagley line has been assured, do ya think you could be turnin' your attention to hooking me up with someone young and sexy? Like a Simmydale dancer or something?"


*headdesk*














So what uses beyond simple dusting have you found for your....

Psst... WTF are you doing?

Hsst! GTFO. I'm gathering ideas for my next Cleaner of Hearts book.

By harassing the hired help?

What better place to get information than from a man maid himself?

He doesn't look very excited to be talking to you.

Well, it's better than him slacking off and playing on the computer or eating our leftovers.

True... true... carry on harassing him.













Apparently Sherman's report on The Don really impressed his boss, because he got the critical pop up for his career plans. As much as I would really love to have him pursue the life of a Special Agent, his LTW lies down the forensic analyst path. I tried having him change his LTW, but special agent wasn't one of his options. I just canceled the change and stuck with what he had. So with a deep breath we punched the button and ventured down the path of Riverview CSI.














Thanks to attentive care of Grandma Ma, Sloan's birthday rolled around with very few issues or incidents. Seriously, I don't think the boy slipped out of the green. Every time I turned around, Ma was feeding him or changing him or playing with him or just toting him about the house as she did stuff like watching her stories.

I'd given Sherman the perk for being a great party host, so I had him ring up a bunch of friends and throw a party for little Sloan. Imagine my surprise when Rhoda showed up pregnant. I guess she's a bit miffed over her son Israel losing the 'favourite grandson' title to Sloan, so she's trying to make up for quality with quantity.















Seeing as how Sloan is attached to Grandma Ma's hip, it was no surprise that Ma was the one who brought him to the cake.

"I'm just makin' sure my grandson and pride of the Bagley family is being well taken care of."

I'm not faulting you Ma. I'm tickled at all the attention you're showing him. It's just... if you keep heaping all this praise and stuff on the boy, he's going to develop a complex.














So Ma helped Sloan blow out his candles, then set him on the floor so he could grow up. *sighs* *facepalm* I really hate the infant to toddler transition. Why couldn't they have kept the "toss the baby in the air" animation? Or heck, used the "change the nappy" spin animation and have the kid spin from an pupa infant into a toddler?













Anyway, here's our golden boy, Sloan, in all his toddlerhood. Cute little guy, isn't he? Of course, I swear that all toddlers look alike -- or damn near alike. Anyway, while he didn't age up into terrible hair and clothes, I did get him send to a mirror to change when I got the change. Those pics will be in the next chapter though.













After the cake was cut, everyone barreled off with a plate. Well, everyone but Odin, who ignored the entire rest of the party to read. Most people ate their cake nice and politely (mainly because there was no room on the table to set their plates down) but Billy... Billy just picked his up and shoveled it in his face. And here I thought they told us our sims were supposed to be neater in their dining habits in TS3.














And one last shot of our little guy as the party winds down and everyone heads home. The party was a blast too, so everyone got good moodlets for it.

As mentioned above, Sloan is friendly and excitable. His favorite music is kids' tunes, he can haz cheezburger (favorite food is hamburgers) and his favorite color is... hot pink? Bwah?


Are you criticizing my son's choice of favorites?

No. Just commenting on the WTFishness of the random generator.

Well stop it. You'll give my son a complex.

Oh, if he doesn't get one from Grandma Ma, I'm sure you and Sherman will be able to do that without any help from me *cackle*

*grumbles*

Sloan inherited Kettie's hair, or a shade slightly darker than Kettie's hair. I have no idea where those gray eyes came from. Kettie has a greenish/yellow-hazel sorta color and Sherman and Ma have green.

Maybe they came from his grandfather.

I don't know. I wonder if they'll stay gray as he grows up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Lemme guess... that'll all be in another chapter.

Yup. Aren't you just dying with excitement? Think about it... next time we get to deal with... potty training!

Yay. *roll eyes*




Back    *    Home    *    Next


.

Friday, August 28, 2009

The Married Life










"Well that was your mother... and that was your father...
before you were born dude, when life was great..."













"So where's that young wife of yours, son? She didn't come down to dinner."

"Kettie went to bed early. She was really tired from work today."

"From work, eh? And here I thought you were the one who wore her out."

"Ma!"

"With as much as you two are all over each other, I'd figure I'd be a grandmother by now."

"Maaaa!"

"You sure you ain't firing blanks? Or maybe plowing a barren field? Your father occasionally had a little problem with..."

"Ahhh! I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you!"













"Ma tried to give me the 'why don't I have grandkids' talk again last night."

She trying to light a fire under you?

"Please, don't mention 'fire'."


Life in the Bagley household is rolling along smoothly for everyone. Seriously, these guys are almost downright boring.















Kettie's enjoying work a lot more, now that she's in the journalism career. She spends her hours at work working on her writing or kissing up to her coworkers. Of course, she still has her outside of work tasks to pursue. She needs interviews and articles to progress in her career. The main way to get the information is, of course, to harass your friends and neighbors into giving you the information which you then twist into an article.

Or you can dig through your neighbor's trash to get all the juicy stuff they won't talk to you about. Guess which one Kettie prefers?
















Don, being right down the road from the Bagley estate, is the prime target for the trash rustling. Kettie is absolutely paranoid that Don is going to catch her.














Her furious scrounging did eventually pay off for her though.

Yeah, and I'm going to have to use the bonus I make on the article on extra strength Abraxo cleanser just to get the trash stench out of my pores

Oh come now, it can't be that bad.

*pauses*

What smells like a weasel with dysentery?


That would be me.

Ewww














After a good long rinse off, Kettie sat down to write her article and... um... WTF is that on your desktop?

It's the cover for the latest book in the Cleaner of Hearts series.

Cleaner of Hearts: Bad Elvis Impersonators?

No, it's Cleaner of Hearts: The Scullery Singer. It's about a dishwasher in Las Simgas.

Whatever. Just write your article.















Don didn't like my article.

You wrote it using personal information you learned by scavenging his trash. Did you ever think he might be throwing the stuff out for a reason? Like because he didn't want it flaunted to the public?

But some of this was just too good to keep a secret.

And this is why we have gossip rags. Because Simmerica likes a juicy scandal more than it likes a warm fuzzy feel good story.

Oh, and you can see from the Indie Stone pop up there that Rhoda has finally found herself a man.
















In fact, when Ma Bagley stopped by the next day to check up on her daughter, she found that Rhoda and Maximus were already married. I can't wait to see when/if these two have kids















Hi Don! Aw, I'd love to tell you who provided me that info, but I've gotta protect my sources.

You're the source! Who else is there to protect?

Yeah, yeah. Anonymity of the press and all that. I thought some of the information my source gave me sounded fishy, but they pay me to take the facts I'm given and write about them. At least I left out the part about the Japanese school girl uniform and the Alf costume.... you mean there were pictures to go with that?! It's probably good that my source didn't find them then.

Why do I think Kettie will be back in his trash later tonight?














About the time Kettie got off the phone with The Don, Sherman arrived home from a long day of directing traffic. Considering he was as stanky as his wife had been earlier, he headed straight for the bathroom. Kettie wandered down to keep him company.

I did not. I came downstairs to brush my teeth.

Sure...

"Hey hon..."

Yes dear?

"Could you hand me a towel?" *pause* "Um... that's a washcloth."

Is there a problem?

"It's a bit... small... don't you think?"

I don't know... can you prove to me you need bigger? *waggle brow*















I'm sure you can all guess where that conversation led. *snicker*

Excuse me, do we need to have that privacy talk again?

No, we don't. Because you don't have any privacy.

But what about poor Sherman?

He doesn't seem to mind.

But this lack of privacy is killing the mood.

You sure it's not your flirting technique?

Hey now, that's one of those hand held massager thingies.

It is not! It's a frickin' jellyfish! You're flirting using invertebrate sea life now!

Hmmmph.














Besides, your claims that the lack of privacy is killing the mood don't seem every well founded.

Ah...

Now if all that rumpling of the bedsheets could only be accompanied by a lullaby or two.














Would you guys lay off with the baby chimes? Between you and Ma Bagley, you're giving Sherman performance anxiety.

Yeah, he does seem a little grumpy about something. I think it's because he lost a game of chess to himself though.

Is that possible?

From Sherman's expression, apparently.















Since Sherman was in no mood to head for bed yet, I sent him off downtown to manage the dead. I'd gotten the death notice for one of Ma Bagley's friends (Flat Broke I think) and wanted to get his gravestone placed out in the cemetery.
















After Flat was properly interred, Sheman then went over and gave his dad a good mourning. *sigh* Sherman's starting to disappoint me. Where's the coward who freaks out and faints at the drop of a hat?

















The next day dawned about as exciting as all the ones before it. Ma Bagley continued to hang around, boozin' it up and living the wild life of a cat burglar.

"I'm just waiting on those grandkids. And maybe an attentive young man looking for a rich cougar to look after him."
















Sherman got promoted again, and this time the promotion came with his own car. He rushed right home to tell his wife.















And from there things devolved into the same thing that happens every night around the Bagley estate. Ma Bagley hit the bottle, and Kettie and Sherman hit on each other.
















Of course, things were a little different this time around. Heh. About time you guys started spinning up "have a baby" wants. I was beginning to wonder.
















Of course, wanting to have a baby and actually conceiving are two totally different things

And it would probably go a lot easier if someone would quit disrupting and spying on us.

Like that's stopped you two from getting busy before.

Yeah, well, maybe there's also a reason why we haven't fell pregnant before too.

In that case, Ma was probably right about the shooting blanks part.

Grrr....














I don't think she was right about that though. Do you?

Braaaap.

heh














"Boy honey, we've sure been having hot dogs a lot recently. Was there a sale on wieners at the grocery or something?"

No, I've just been having a craving for them lately.

"I see."

Oh, and the next time you're at the store, could you pick me up some pickles and ice cream? I've been craving those too.

*choke* "gaaak"















Are you okay? You look a bit distressed.

Yeah, I'm not feeling the greatest.

Well you are pregnant. You won't feel on top of the world every day during your pregnancy.

Whatever. I'm thinking that last sardine and summer sausage sandwich did me in. I'm feeling all bloaty.















Nope, nope. I don't think that's it. *chuckle*

Oh, I'd better tell Sherman.













I think he already suspects.

Shermy, do you remember when we talked about the pitter patter of little feet...

"...and how we complained that we couldn't get a dog because EA was stupid and didn't give us pets?"

Er... well... we will be getting something sorta like a pet.

Your child is not a pet.














Well, I think Sherman will be a great father. He was really excited when I 'officially' told him I was pregnant.

Oh, I'm sure Sheman will be a great dad.














And as her pregnancy progresses, Kettie got to discover that being pregnant was not all fun and games and exotic foods and belly rubs. *snicker*

I suppose that could be payback for her keeping Sherman occupied so long in the gym he did that to himself.















As Kettie was taking a nice long bath after her little 'accident', I got this interesting little Indie Stone pop up. I guess since Ruby couldn't have Sherman, she went for the next available guy.

Oooo, it's a girl. If I have a little boy, they can get married!

Er... but Don's daughter is an... um... Broke *wrinkles nose*

You promised! Don's kids and mine!

We'll see... Don may have more kids... as may you.















"I have the strangest feeling I'm being watched."















As Kettie's due date drew closer, I notice Ma wandering around the kitchen with this thought bubble. At first I thought she was just anxiously awaiting the birth of her grandchild...















But then I got got this Indie Stone pop up announcing that Rhoda and Maximus had a son.

You know, if you guys hadn't taken your sweet time at getting around to getting pregnant, you wouldn't be taking second place in the grandkid race.
















Kettie continued to work on her writing, submitting her work via the web. Between writing articles for the local paper, I caught her working on more trashy "Cleaner of Hearts" fan fiction *chuckle*













Heather Crosby dropped by to visit one afternoon, and Sherman cornered her to question her for his latest report.

"Oh, I know everyone claims my husband and I don't get along, but it's just not true. I'll admit, occasionally he gets on my nerves and I want nothing more than to take a ball bat upside his head, but honestly, whose spouse doesn't get to them from time to time?"














"And then she told me she wants to take a baseball bat to her husband's head. Can you imagine..."

Hmmm... I can think of better things to do rather than using a baseball bat...


Y'know, I think I know where this is leading...














Yup, as I suspected. I swear, everything devolves to woohoo with these two. *chuckle* They'd just better be careful or all that action is going to trigger labor for Kettie.















Oh my goodness, Don decided to make an honest woman out of Ruby... that or the rest of the Brokes held a shotgun wedding.















Remember what I said about all the woohoo triggering labor? Yeah, well, some of us were right, although it seems everyone but Kettie was aware of it. Ma returned from prowling her rounds as a cat burglar and rushed right up to panic. Even Sherman roused from his sound sleep before Kettie could even stop spitting out Zzzzs.















Mmmmph... what'up with all the screaming and yelling?

You might want to get up now. I think things that require your attention are starting to happen.

Things? What things?














Ooof! Oh! Those things!

Heh... I don't know if that face is from the labor, or from impaling herself in the end table. I seriously thought she was glitched and stuck in the table for a few.














But after a couple moments she extricated herself and she and Sherman made a beeline out the door for the hospital.














Now, Sherman has his own patrol car now. Do they take the patrol car? No. They call a taxi to drive them to the hospital... and knowing taxis, it probably took the long route there in order to run up the fare.














"You know, you would think an emergency room would have some outdoor lighting. To help you find the place. It's... ah... terribly dark out here."

Is there a problem hon?

"Um... ah... no... er... not really."

Good. Now get out of the way. You're blocking the door and I have no desire to have this child out here on the flagstones.

"Yes dear."



Hmm... this seems a good place to wrap things up for this chapter.

What, you wanted to find out about Kettie and Sherman's baby? Hmm... well... maybe next chapter.






Back    *    Home    *    Next




.