Gen 3 - Chapter 12: Relocation

The first few weeks after the twins' birthday and Amy's appearance, we all spent time getting to know one another, because there was a little time yet before they could be enrolled into school. Amy kept trying to talk me out of enrolling her into the high school, something along the lines of 'I already know all I need to know, we have special learning technology in the year 2614', or something along those lines. I honestly didn't listen much, I just crossed my arms and gave her my best stern mother face and voice. "You are going, period, end of story. You're fourteen, and I'm not going to let you get out of school, even if you already know it all. Don't you want to make some friends? After all, that's where your father and I met, you know. You might meet a nice boy there and fall in love."

When I said boy, she snorted. "No. A nice girl, maybe. But fine, I'll go - I guess I do need friends or something.."

Oh. So Amy took after her grandmothers. I should have known at least one of my kids would.

The day finally came for them to go to school, and I watched them head out, wondering where the time has gone - well, with Amy, there hadn't been any yet, but with Rosie and Wren.. they shouldn't have already been in school! 

It took me quite a while to figure out what I should do with myself. My belly was swollen to ridiculous proportions (I was pretty sure it was twins again), and so it was impossible to do much of anything. Eventually, I remembered that I was still writing Until My Last Breath, and upon sitting down at it, a rush of brilliance came to me, and I had it finished in under three hours. It took so long, and ended so fast. There were still a few hours until Amy would be home.

 

Then I remembered the opportunity my agent had given me a few days before. She said I could do it whenever I wanted to, it was to go entertain the sick children stuck at the hospital, and I figured, what better time to entertain children at a hospital than when I'm about to pop out some children myself? I waddled to the car, leaving a note behind to let everyone know where I was going.

Entertaining the children was amazing, and with my hormones going crazy, sometimes I found myself crying from sympathy for these poor kids, so many of which may never see their own homes again. Several of them asked to feel my tummy, and I eagerly let them do so - the looks on their faces when they felt my baby kick made my day far more than publishing a book ever could.

Several hours later, I figured it was probably best if I went home and said goodbye to all my new friends, promising them I'd visit them again soon, and then headed out the front doors. Just in time to see my MIL, Faith, coming in to work. We looked at each other, and gave each other a smile in greeting. "Hello there, Dahlia. I see your pregnancy is going well?"

"Yeah it is, Mom," I'd taken to calling her Mom almost as soon as Marcelo and I had gotten married, because it just felt unnatural to call her anything else. "I'm pretty sure I'm having twins again, too." We stood there talking for a little bit, mainly about her grandchildren - Marcelo had told her about Amy almost as soon as Amy was 'born' from the time machine, and we made sure to keep her updated on our lives. "Well, I should probably let you get in to work. It was great to see you, Mom. Love you."

"Love you, too, Dahlia." We gave each other a quick hug, before she went inside and I waddled off to my car.

 

When I got home, Rosie and Wren were just kind of standing around in the room dazedly, and Amy was outside chatting with a boy I was guessing she'd brought home from school. When I walked in, the twins looked at me tiredly, and said almost in unison, "I'm never going back there again."

"Why not?" I asked, confused. I'd have thought it would be Amy bugging me about this - again - because both of the twins had been so excited to start school..

"I'm so tired! And I still have homework.." whined Wren, who put her hand to her forehead. I smiled ever so slightly, and then gathered them into a group hug. I understood that, I didn't like school much at first either.. I really didn't like it after seeing Ms. Bernabe pass on, but I grew to enjoy it. Might have been because I was genius, though.

"Girls, I know it's tiring. And the homework isn't easy, but.. you'll get used to it. I'm sorry, you have to go to school. Now scoot, go to bed - the sooner you go to bed, the sooner you can get up and start on that homework." Two groans, but they both just did as I told them and headed to bed.

As I turned to go get myself some plasma and then find my husband - probably in bed, since we'd all gotten up at the same time, and I know the twins and I were extremely tired at least - I glanced out the window, just in time to see.. Amy seeming to be bonding with some butterflies. One landed on her nose, and it looked like she was giggling about it. That girl.. I barely knew her yet, and I already loved her as much as my other two (I was her mother, so that wasn't too surprising, but still). She was.. quite a bit like my Mom Lyr, but at the same time, she was a lot different. I just didn't completely know what to make of her, all the time. Like when I was watching her catching butterflies.

 

Only a week or so later, I woke up from a nap - while everyone was gone at work and school - when my water broke. The contractions started quickly, and I stood, clutching at my tummy and trying to decide what to do. Home birth or hospital? I had no one to take me to the hospital, and wouldn't for a few hours - I'd just stick it out here.. I wasn't a strong woman when it came to pain, but I was willing to do just about anything for my babies. So I stuck it out.

When Marcelo came home, and came into our bedroom to go to bed, he freaked out. "Dahlia! Dahlia, honey are you okay?! What's going on? Are the babies okay? Hospital! Hospital now right?!"

"MARCELO SHUT UP AND JUST GO TO BED! They're FINE I'm just in LABOR! AAUGH. GO TO BED. I don't need the hospital, they-arr.. they're almost HERE, okay? Just.. SLEEP.."

He hesitated for quite a bit, before reluctantly listening to me and going to bed. Almost as soon as he fell asleep, our fourth baby arrived.

And he was a boy! A baby boy. My Eider - I cooed to him, and cuddled him close. "Hi, my baby boy.." I would have cuddled him and loved on him a little longer, but almost immediately I felt another one coming. A very impatient one, too. I hurriedly went to the nursery and put Eider in his crib.

Only a few minutes later, I gave birth to his twin sister, Dove. I snuggled her close, and was happy to realize that it was twins, not triplets. I don't think I could handle three babies at once, even if I would have help from Marcelo and Amy.

My family was closer to being complete.. but I knew I wanted one more. I wanted the same amount of kids that my Moms had had - I'd loved having five siblings. I was going to wait a little while though, once we had more room.

For Eider and Dove's first year, our lives were.. perfect. The easiest way to describe it. Before, I was afraid that I'd never get a picture perfect family because Marcelo never wanted to give in to his emotions. Now, though, I really did have a perfect family. Our older kids got along without us having to tell them to. Rosella, though she seemed to have a penchant for baking sweets on their little oven, had already decided what she wanted to do when she grew up - she was going to be a five star celebrity and be worth thousands. I always knew she was my little attention seeker. Wren, however, just wanted to master her writing and painting skills - they were polar opposites, but they loved each other so much it amazed me sometimes.

Eider and Dove were much easier than the girls had been at this stage, but it might have just been because there were three of us to take care of them.

All too soon, it came time for my little Eider and Dove to grow up. When Eider grew up, I had to stare at his hair. Where had he gotten that blond? He looked absolutely adorable with it, and Marcelo's eyes, but it still confused me.

When Dove grew up, I stared at her hair as well. Not because I didn't know where it came from, but.. well. Mainly because I thought she was one of the most adorable little things ever, with the Parodi eyes, and her Grandma Faith's hair. I tried to convince her, though, that I should dress her in a different color besides her favorite, violet, but she threw a fit whenever I tried. So I decided to suck it up and deal with the face that her hair and her clothes kind of clashed.

Life was still pretty picture perfect after Eider and Dove grew up. They were the sweetest little toddlers, and absolutely loved playing dolls with each other. Sure, I still made sure to catch a nap between times when they were entertained or asleep, and they weren't quite as easy to manage as Rosie and Wren had been, but.. Dove was pretty high maintenance, and Eider was curious about everything. And his curiosity often led to me digging his toys out of the toilet.
I tried to make sure to spend just as much time with my older girls, too, so they didn't feel unloved. Not to mention I was still trying to get to know Amy. And, I was beginning to get a little bit lonely, because Marcelo.. well... when he wasn't at work, he wasn't at home. Or, when he was home, he was sneaking off to talk on his cell phone, or sleeping. I hate to doubt him, but.. what was he doing that I couldn't know about? He was outright avoiding me, and not bothering to hide it. The first thing my mind went to was, naturally, another woman. My confidence in myself was lower than my trust of him was high. Maybe that was the real reason why he'd said no the first time I asked him to marry me..? But, no. He hadn't started this until after Eider and Dove were born.
My mind was constantly whirling around 'what is my husband avoiding me for?' Thankfully, I had a lot of distractions. Like the fact that Quin and Juston had GOTTEN MARRIED! I'd had a serious squeal attack when I learned that, and my girls had all given me a strange look until I explained it to them.

One day, I caught him in the upstairs bathtub room - the place that's always been my personal favorite for hiding what's going on with me. I could hear him muttering quietly, most likely into his phone, and I pressed my ear gently up against the door. What's going on? I couldn't quite hear what was being said. I heard the occasional word, though. "Done? ... Dahlia will.. today? ... awesome!" At the few words I could actually make out, I scrunched up my face. If he was really talking to a mistress.. what the Sims could they possibly be talking about? I really began to doubt my suspicion, but I still moved quickly away from the door and attempted to look like I was just making Amy's bed when Marcelo came out.
"Daaaahlia," he practically purred, and came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I let out an involuntary gasp, and looked back at him.
"Yes Marcelo?"
"I've been working on a surprise for you.. it's finally done today." My jaw dropped open slightly, and I spun in his arms.
"What kind of a surprise?"
"The kind that requires us to pack up all the things we want to keep and abandon this.. well, rather disgusting old house."
A house. "A house?! You had a house built for me?"
"I had a house built for us and our growing family. I know you want one more child." he pecked me on the lips, and I had to wonder how I'd ever thought he could be cheating on me.
So, the rest of the day consisted of us packing up the things we wanted to keep, and then piling them into a moving truck. As soon as we were sure we were ready, we grabbed the toddlers, and headed off towards our new house. It was even across the bridge and up the hill! I kept looking at the big houses we were passing, wondering which one was our's, until we parked at one of the few single-story houses. I stared at it for several moments, before hopping out of the vehicle, and staring around. It was.. beautiful.

The outside was absolutely gorgeous, and perfect for our needs. There was even a new car! Also, a path that wound all the way around the house, connecting everything. A playground for the kids, an outdoor chess table, a telescope, our nectar maker that no one ever uses, a BBQ area complete with picnic bench, a clothesline, a baseball, a football, a portable Gnubb set.. there may have been more things, but I was too excited to get inside to pay much attention.

Upon walking in the front door, there was the front room. Even just that room was amazing, and very homey.

The next room was sort of our living room, mixed with a skilling room and a computer room. And just plain an entertainment room. The entire room kind of wrapped around another sort of room in the middle, that I could see through the door to it was a stair room.

Next was the kitchen/dining room combination. It was HUGE! Why was it so huge? It wasn't like we needed all the counter space for making food.. I tried to ask Marcelo about why it was so big, but he just ushered through the door near the dining table. I guess I shouldn't complain - it was a gorgeous kitchen.

The room I was ushered into was a bathroom. "A bathroom connected to the kitchen?" I asked, incredulously, but Marcelo just shrugged my question off and lead me through yet another door.

The room in the next area was obviously Rosie and Wren's bedroom. At least, I figured it was, judging by the colors of the bedspreads. It wasn't terribly decorated, but they barely spent time in their room at our old place as it was. Next, we headed through the door we didn't already go through, into the main room, and went through the back door into another room.

It was a pool room! I gasped as I entered, and at first started to go back into the main area when I noticed how sunny it was. Then I realized they were windows, and for whatever reason, filtered sunlight didn't affect us. "Marcelo! This room is amazing - we can get sunlight without being outside!" I exclaimed, then grabbed him and gave him a very firm hug.
"I thought you might like it. Come on, let's go see our room." I nodded, and followed him back to the door across the room from the kitchen door.

Our room was absolutely amazing! I stood around staring for several moments, and then came incredibly close to just pulling Marcelo onto the bed with me, but managed to control myself. Through a doorless doorway was a very small nursery, that made me give Marcelo a look. "This room is too small."
"I, uh.. I'll see what I can do."
"Good boy." I nodded at him, then turned and headed through the door in the nursery to the next room.

It was obviously a room for Eider and Dove, after their birthday. Thankfully, their birthday was a ways off - I wasn't ready for them to be children yet! After admiring their room for a few moments, I walked back into Marcelo and my room, and through the other door in there.

That room was a bathroom. A very nice master bathroom that I really looked forward to using, soon. A nice bubble bath in my huge bathtub.. mm. Marcelo then led me to the basement.

Downstairs, I noticed, was designed much like the upstairs main room. The first thing I noticed was how difficult it was to get out the door because of the sculptor's station, and I gave Marcelo a look. "This is going outside. I want to be able to actually get out of this room." He raised his hands in defense of himself, and just continued showing me around the main basement room. We now had a grand piano - it was actually given to Mom Lyr ages ago for being a five star celebrity, but we had no room at our old place - and the rest of our instruments were down there. Actually, most of our big items were just pile into that main basement room - the only part of it that didn't seem thrown together was the area for my family's urns. It was rather nice, actually. 
"I hope you know this is getting redesigned at some point." I told Marcelo, and he just nodded.
"I know, I know, I just.. didn't have any idea where to put a lot of our things so had the movers put them down here. It was really hard with that glass staircase.." he kind of trailed off into mumbles, as he steered me to the room nearest the inventor's workbench.

 
It was an absolutely wonderful laundry room, much bigger than the one at our old house. There was plenty of counter space to fold the clean laundry, and it was amazingly decorated.

Next, Marcelo led me to a door right across from the laundry room door, and we stepped inside. It was a large, pretty plain bathroom. But most basement bathrooms tend to be plain, don't they? "This is Amy's bathroom."
I looked at Marcelo. "Amy's?"
"Yeah. The basement is kind of her zone - I figured she'd like that."
"Ooooh, yeah," I laughed, "I'm sure she will."
"C'mon, we only have one more room." He dragged me back out of the bathroom, and to the door along the same wall.

As soon as we walked in, I kind of gasped. Amy was going to love this room, so much. We kind of had taken to spoiling her with things and our attention, since we had - unintentionally - abandoned her in the future for most of her life. So we felt like we needed to show her how much we cared. I'm pretty sure this room would help.
"Oh, Marcelo, she is going to love it."
"Yeah.. it ended up even better than I imagined it would be."
I gave him a quick hug, before we both went back upstairs to check on the toddlers.

As soon as we established that Eider and Dove were fine - so I turned to my wonderful husband, and grabbed him in my arms, pulling him to me, and kissing him deeply. After a moment, we heard Dove crawl up and giggle at us, so we pulled away from the kiss, but didn't let go of each other, looking into each other's eyes. We stayed like that for a few moments, before I smirked lightly.
"I have an idea, Marcelo.."
"Oh, and what's that?"
"I want to thank you properly, and though it's our bed in there, we should break in our new bedroom."
"Oooh, I like where this is going."

(A/N: And there it is! My first house tour. The pool room, kitchen, Dahlia and Marcelo's room, Amy's room, and the laundry room are my favorite rooms in the entire house. The house isn't very well built, because I kept realizing I forgot things so I'd have to throw them in at random places. I used to go more into detail with my building, but my game gets so slow when I try to customize anything. Bleh. I really need a faster computer, especially before Generations comes out.. anyway! The new toddlers - Eider's traits are: brave and genius. And Dove's traits are: insane and absent-minded.)