Baby #43 and 44

Today was going to be a big day for all of my children. As I fed Suri her morning bottle, the excitement of what was to come later in the day took over me. They would each be entering their next stages in life, and I had a party planned for later that night. The family hadn’t had a big party for quite a long time, and today was the perfect time to throw one. I could hardly wait to catch up with my friends and see how my children were doing.

Leah Sierra was the first guest to arrive that evening. I had asked her to swing by a few hours earlier so that we could talk and she could help me set up for the party. We talked about my grandson, Kameron as well as how Leah’s challenge was going.

You know that eerie feeling that comes over you when even though you are completely alone, you feel like someone is watching you – in this case I was with Leah, but still. That’s exactly how I felt when Leah and I were talking. It was strange because when I turned around I couldn’t see anyone. Leah said that she hadn’t seen anyone either, but she too had felt as if we were being watched.

Before long, the rest of the guests began to arrive. Several of my children were able to show up including: Elliot, Joanna, Eleanor, Tiffany, Zola, and Selena. Dr. Zoidberg and Jack Skellington were also able to make it to watch their children grow. Of course, Leah was there and Violet was only able to drop by for a quick hello, but her two daughters Robbin and Rosie stayed for the party.

Heimdall and Suri were the first to be brought up to the cakes. I think they aged beautifully. Both got their father’s skin tone with my red hair and blue eyes.

Next Michael was brought to the cake…

Finally, it was time for Jason and John to age into teenagers. Normally this age worries me the most – especially after how much Freddy and Chucky changed once they reached their teenage angst – but with these two, I really wasn’t worried as much. They were both such sweet boys, I wasn’t sure if that would change at any age.

John…

Jason…

After everyone had gotten full off the birthday cake, the party was still in full swing. While most of the guests stayed outside dancing during the party, Robbin found her way inside and got a kick out of the kids dollhouse.

Likewise, Leah found herself inside the house as well in a not so pleasant conversation with Jack Skellington. Apparently she didn’t find Jack’s insane ramblings and creativity to be as amusing as I did.

It was very late in the night by the time the last guest had left. I was exhausted after cleaning all those dirty dishes. I had forgotten how much work a party seemed to take between planning and hosting. As soon as my head hit the pillow that night, I was out like a light.

The next morning seem to come far to soon for my liking. I was still pretty exhausted from the previous night’s party and clean up, but no matter how tired I might have been there just isn’t a way to wake up angry when this beautiful smiling face is the first to greet you.

I got to work right away on potty training them both. The sooner they were out of diapers and able to use the potty on their own, the better. I was pleased when they seemed to catch on fairly quickly.

Didn’t I tell you I was happy?

Despite being a couch potato, John is my little helper around the house. No matter what show he might be watching on television, he is always willing to give me a hand with his younger siblings.

John also happens to be the comedian in the house. He is always trying to make one of us laugh by impersonating different celebrities or by making funny facial expressions. Then again, I’ve known that he had a great sense of humor since he was a small toddler and was making me laugh all the way back then.

In contrast to his twin, Jason is typically a loner. He loves his younger siblings as much as John does and gladly helps out with them if I need him to, but if given the option he would prefer being alone. With a house as full as this one, solitude can be a bit difficult to find sometimes.

That’s why more often then not, the boys can be found at one of the local fishing spots on the weekends. At first I was very protective and wouldn’t let Michael go with them, but I know my boys. I know that Jason and John will make sure he is safe.

I guess I should probably explain something. When Michael was born, I made a promise to myself to keep him from going down the wrong path in life. As much as I love Freddy and Chucky, they have both gotten into so much trouble with the law since moving out that I’m constantly having to use the little money the family has to bail them out of jail. I was determined to not let the same happen with Michael.

So I decided when he aged into a child, I would keep him at home with me so his father wouldn’t have a chance to convince him to turn evil like the other Reaper father‘s seem to have done. While Jason and John were allowed to leave for school each morning, Michael would stay at home with me – usually playing in the sprinklers until I was ready to start his home schooling for the day.

In my efforts to protect Michael, I soon realized that all I was doing was smothering him and preventing him from having a normal happy childhood. This wasn’t what I wanted at all. I didn’t want him to grow up and resent me when he got older so I explained to him the reasons for my concerns, but in return, promised him that I would start allowing him to go out more – as long as his brothers were with him.

That was the main reason the fishing trips began. It was an excuse for all my boys to go out and spend time away from the house. With them out of the house, I was able to work with the twins on teaching them to talk.

No matter how many times I seem to do this, it’s always the same feeling when my children say their first words. I always get a little choked up. It’s always a sign that my babies won’t be babies for much longer.

Heimdall and Suri are always doing everything together and I mean everything. If one is starting to get a little hungry, they refuse to drink their bottle until I make one for each of them. They always go to sleep and wake up within minutes of one another. Even their facial expressions can be identical at times. I swear if I wasn’t their mother, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell them apart at times.

So when I found these shirts at a local store, I couldn’t resist buying them for the twins. It just seems like something they would try to pull off on me – trying to blame the other for doing something they did in hopes that neither of them would get in trouble since I couldn‘t be sure of which one really did it. If Suri’s hair was a tad bit longer, they might actually be able to get away with it too. They look so much alike.

The dishwasher has been making a real nuisance of itself lately. I bought this one years ago in hopes that it would make the family clean up a bit easier on me, but all this one seems to do lately is break. Meaning that I would have to take time away from my family in order to constantly fix it. I called a repairman to ask for his professional opinion. He stated that due to the age of the machine, it would be best to just take it to the local junkyard, trade it in, and buy a newer model.

Buying a brand new dishwasher wasn’t really in the family’s budget so I decided to see what I could do. I had learned just about everything their was to know about being handy around the house, and saw this as just another challenge. After making some minor adjustments, I think I was able to make it nearly unbreakable.

Life fell into a very nice comfortable routine for the next few weeks. It wasn’t until I was putting Suri in her crib for the night that I heard a thud downstairs. I made my way to the boy’s bedroom next door and just as I had thought, they were all three asleep.

I was beginning to get a little bit worried. If my children hadn’t made that noise then who had? A burglar? I pulled out my cell phone as I made my way downstairs to check. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if their was a burglar in the house. Fight him? Scare him off? Run back upstairs and protect my children until the police were able to arrive?

As my feet reached the bottom step, I heard the television flip on in the living room. The burglar was watching television? That didn’t make a bit of sense. As I turned the corner heading into the living room, I saw the strangest looking green man sitting on my couch staring directly back at me. His expression was enough to tell me that he had been waiting for me to come downstairs.

“Christy Quinn, I presume?” the man stated as I nodded at him nervously. I still had a death grip on my cell phone ready to call the police if things went badly. “My name is the Grinch, and I have a favor to ask of you…”

“A favor? This favor couldn’t have waited until morning?” The Grinch didn’t look at me. He didn’t respond to my question. He seemed to be in great thought.

“Honestly, Christy, I would prefer not to be here at all. It is not in my nature to seek out the help of others, especially from those with such horrible looking features such as yourself. However, I am no longer as young as I once was. I have decided that I am in need of an heir.”

My mind was still back on his statement about my “horrible looking features”. He breaks into my house in the middle of the night and insults my appearance. I could feel my blood beginning to boil, but the happiness on his face as he continued confused me.

“I need a child who is equally as grouchy as I am to take my place when the time comes. I need my name…my legacy to live on.”

This conversation was all beginning to seem a little to familiar to me. It was the same thing that the Reaper brothers had been seeking. They wanted an heir to take over their job as the Reaper when their time to “retire” came. I shook my head very quickly no, cutting the Grinch off.

“No, no, no…I have already fell into this trap once before. I will not fall into it again. My child will not be used to take part in some evil plans you have.”

“I do not enjoy asking this favor of you, Christy, because quiet honestly, the thought of woohooing you disgusts me. But it seems to be my best option. I have heard many things about your heart. How you help men who have previously been unable to conceive a child. How you do not judge a man or child based on their looks. You are the perfect person to ask this favor of Christy.”

I played along and decided to ask him a question that I’m sure he wasn’t expecting me to ask. “What if the child turns out to be like me?”

“I have covered that base I assure you. I previously conceived three sons by another challenge mother. She posed the same question as you just did, and it is very likely that the child we have together will turn out like you. Cheerful…happy…completely different from what a Grinch is suppose to be. If it comes to that, I will move on to another challenge mother as their seems to be a lot of you out there.”

He went on to tell me that I was free to raise the child as I pleased. He wouldn’t be around to influence the child negatively as the Reaper brothers had been. If our child was meant to be the next Grinch then my influence on him/her would make no difference.

Despite all the nasty things that he had said, I agreed to let him be the next father. I couldn’t deny his unique looking skin and facial features, and most importantly, I believed that no matter what, I could prevent my child from turning out like him. There was no flirting with the Grinch. We headed straight upstairs to do the deed.

The Grinch said goodbye without even looking at me. As I was getting dressed, I heard Suri giggle from the nursery. It was odd because I had just put her asleep before this whole ordeal. I walked over and saw the Grinch playing with her. It confused me to see him acting so nice to her, but when he spotted me in the doorway. His tone completely changed.

“Disgusting little brat…” he said as he shoved Suri into my arms and disappeared downstairs. I calmed Suri down with a smile on my face before placing her back into the crib. I was beginning to wonder if the Grinch is really as evil as he pretends to be or if it’s all a show. Maybe my sweet, smiling little Suri was able to melt away the iciness of his cold heart.

I spent the next few weeks teaching the twins how to walk and working on a few paintings. There were a few things that I wanted to buy for the kids, but I would need to save up for them first. It was while painting that I felt the first movements of my little one.

***
My emotions have been going crazy this pregnancy. I seem to be crying no matter what. John came home from school overworked and passed out at the kitchen table, I cried. Jason helped me with the garden and a few of my plants died, I cried. Michael didn’t understand his school work, and again, I cried. I’m sure the children were tired of my constant crying, but I couldn’t help it. Birthday parties seem to be the worst though.

This time, I was having to watch three of my children enter their next stages in life. Michael would be joining his brother as a teenager while Suri and Heimdall would be starting school for the first time.

Heimdall…

Suri…

Michael…

Despite being the artistic one, Suri headed straight for the kids oven to try her hand at baking and let her brother try out the easel first. After Heimdall completed his first painting, Suri had him test out one of her finished muffins.

The two then headed upstairs to play with the activity table. It’s so nice to see that even though Heimdall and Suri are growing, they are still just as close to one another as they were had been as toddlers. I hope they always stay this close.

Meanwhile outside, Michael had talked Jason into throwing the football around for a few hours before bed. You are probably wondering where John is during this time, right? Well now that there are no toddlers in the house, he needed to catch up on all the shows he missed while helping me tend to Heimdall and Suri.

The following morning, all of the kids were up bright and early ready for school. Yes, all of them – including Michael – would be going to school and leaving me at home by myself. I hadn’t been fond of the idea to send Michael to school after I had home schooled him his entire childhood, but it was something that he really wanted to do. It did ease my mind knowing that his older brothers would be there to watch out for him.

“Michael…” Suri whined. “That wasn’t fair, mom distracted me.”

I could hear Heimdall laughing from behind one of my apple trees, glad that Michael hadn’t chased him during their game of tag before school.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I had distracted Suri…after all, I had been focused on my garden while they were playing. I was trying to figure out how it had gotten so large without my noticing it. I even had to buy another sprinkler to help with the watering otherwise I would have been out here all morning.

With the kids away at school, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I’m so use to having toddlers to occupy my day that I never know what to do with myself when their aren’t any in the house. I decided I would look into the challenge mother that the Grinch had mentioned. I wanted to check on how her children were doing and if any of them had inherited the Grinch’s grumpiness. Unfortunately the Grinch hadn’t given me a name, but he had mentioned that she lived in Twinbrook.

I had never heard of Twinbrook before, so I emailed a few of my older children who liked to travel – specifically Heidi, Lydia, and Rosa as they traveled the most. With the small information they were able to give me, I might be able to locate the right mother.

When the kids were home from school, I would try to divide my time equally between them. A lot of the time, I would take Michael and Jason to local fishing spots around town after they had finished their homework. Michael told me during one of our trips that he had decided he wanted to have the Perfect Aquarium one day.

On another one of our fishing trips, I reeled in a small treasure chest. Inside it had a Flame Fruit seed. I had been growing this particular plant for years now, but the person who had placed the seed inside this chest obviously cared about the seed a great deal to go through all of the trouble to keep it safe. Maybe they even thought the plant would go extinct one day and that’s why it was hidden away. I made a mental note to plant it as soon as I got home that night and make sure that it never went extinct.

***

The last few weeks of my pregnancy seem to drag on. I was excited to see my new baby, but my unborn child seemed perfectly content with staying inside of me for as long as possible. On the day of the actual event, I spent all of my time playing guitar. I still wasn’t “Rock Star” material, but it was soothing and I was hoping it would encourage the baby to come out before his/her older siblings got home from school that afternoon.

Of course things don’t always work out the way you plan for them to. I had just set my guitar down and was giving each of my children a hug and asking them about their day, when I felt that all to familiar feeling of labor pains.

The three youngest of my kids became to frantically panic unsure of what to do to help me.

I tried to reassure them that everything would be alright and all I needed was some peace and quiet so I could focus on getting their new sibling here safely. My words seem to fall on deaf ears as my children continued to scream and panic. So I did the only thing I could think of…I decided that this birth would be a hospital birth.

On my way to the awaiting cab, I saw a man with a rather large nose and pale skin walking up my drive way.

He turned to speak to when saw me, “Hello, my name is…”

I didn’t have time to talk to him, I had to get the hospital. With a forced smile, I replied to him, “I’m sorry, but this is a really bad time. Would you mind coming back later?”

I didn’t even wait for his response before getting into the cab and disappearing down the road. I hated that I had to be rude, but the safety of my child was more important then civility right now.

I also ran into Eleanor just outside of the hospital. She’s been promoted to Lieutenant at work. I didn’t get the chance to tell her how proud I was of all that’s she’s accomplished with all the labor pain I was in.

I was even more surprised when the Grinch came to the hospital to be with my during labor. Maybe my little Suri had touched his heart that night and made him a kinder Grinch.

After several hours of labor, I was blessed with yet another set of twins. A little girl and…

…a little boy!

I’m not sure what possessed me to trust the Grinch to carry one of the children out and back to my house. Maybe I was truly hoping that he had changed. That he could care about another person besides himself.

The Grinch had agreed to bring my new son home for me. He was taking quite awhile inside the hospital with the nurses so my taxi driver decided to go ahead and take me home so I could feed my daughter. Grinch was suppose to follow in another taxi once the nurses were finished showing him the basics of fatherhood.

Whatever positive feelings that I had begun to develop for the Grinch moments before I delivered the twins quickly evaporated when he put my newborn son down on the sidewalk in front of the hospital and ran off. If it hadn’t of been for Eleanor still standing outside the hospital, I’m not sure what would have happened to my little guy.

I suppose that it is time for official introductions to my two new bundles of joy, right? Welcome baby #43, Yasmina Quinn. She has my red hair, her father’s skin tone and facial features, and the same mysterious purple eyes as Michael.

Welcome baby #44, Odin Quinn. He is pretty much his father made over. Odin has his father’s skin tone, facial features, hair color, and eye color. I’m not sure there is a single feature he got from me.

***
The Grinch was made by ButtonsGinger of the Sims 3 community and you can download him here. Name credit this time goes to Jake (of the Hollister Legacy) for Yasmina and Nova Strike for Odin. Next update will most likely be a Mini-Update.