Jorge and Jolie are 35, Grace Elise is 7
Givar started as quite an odd month for the Dawson family. Jolie was beginning to accept the fact that Grace Elise would probably be thier only biological child and simply focus on the fact that she was healthy. Perhaps it was how her sister Jodi, lost everything she owned in a fire in Riverdale or how Ginger Grey lost her mother last simmonth. Perhaps it was how a year ago this month, the Grey family had a healthy baby boy, but two weeks later, thier baby was dead. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was the official cause of death. The residents rallied around the young family, bringing food and comfort. Helping Ginger deal with the loss caused Jolie to grow closer to the woman. She no longer feared her cooking prowess, instead the duo often met to exchange recipes and cooking techniques.
"I'm taking this over to Ginger!" she called to her husband as she packed the small assortment of food.
"Can I come too?" Grace Elise asked.
Jolie was hoping that Grace Elise would ask to walk over to the farm with her, that would give her father some needed time to pick up her Christmas present.
"Of course."
"Can Puggles come too? He likes to play with Annie and Bryant."
Grace Elise and the Grey twins, Annie and Bryant, were in the same second grade class at school, along with the Shazad twins, Myra and Naraj. The five children were part of a small baby boom in Apple Valley years ago. Thankfully, Grace Elise had outgrown the stage where she kept asking where her twin ran away to. Occasionally she still talked to her imaginary sister, but not near her mother.
"Of course."
---
Christmas came quite quickly and the weather changed just as fast. One moment, the sky was clear and sunny, the next moment, large clouds dropped gallons of snow to the ground. Jolie was content in the warm kitchen. Pennelson Publishing had called to say that her latest book, French Desserts, was selling well and that they wanted to extend her contract for more cookbooks.
While Jolie perfected her latest Christmas cookie recipe, Peanut Blossom Cookies, Jorge took his daughter outside to build a snowman.
"Daddy, you're doing it wrong."
"What?"
"You're packing too much snow." Grace Elise explained. "You need to pat the snow into shape gently."
Jorge stepped back and watched his daughter form a very nicely shaped snowman. Thankfully she accepted his help in putting on the top hat and a carrot nose.
"Now, do you want to learn how to make a proper snow angel?"
"Snow angel?" Grace Elise asked. "You mean an angel like Annie's little brother?"
"Not quite. Here, first you need to lay in the snow."
"I don't think mommy would like this."
"Well, mommy's inside and we're outside. So lay down like daddy."
Grace Elise followed suit.
"Spread your arms and legs like this."
"Like this?" she asked.
"Perfect." He said raising his head to see. "Now, move them really really fast."
Grace Elise giggled as she moved her limbs.
"Now stand up!"
"It looks like an angel!!!" Grace Elise shrieked.
"Come inside you two, before Christmas arrives." Jolie called to her family.
---
The next morning, the family quickly dressed and exchanged thier gifts. Grace Elise made her parents a Christmas drawing which they hung on the fridge. Her parents gave her numerous toys including a tea set and toy oven. 
Jorge gave his wife a diamond necklace and Jolie gave her husband a waterproof watch.
Later as Grace Elise took Puggles for his walk, the couple cleared most of the wrapping paper away.
"That was a beautiful Christmas."
"It's not over yet." Jorge grinned, pointing upwards to the mistletoe.
Jolie grinned and they shared a kiss.
"I've been thinking," Jorge started. "We haven't been successful with having a baby...do you want to look into adoption? I mean, only if you still want another baby."
Jolie grinned behind watery eyes. "I would love to look into adoption!"
---
I decided to wait one more round to see what this couple would decide to do regarding thier fertility issues. It's funny since a number of residents kept popping up with the adoption bubble and even discussing it with Jorge and Jolie (though there hasn't been a recent adoption). I took it as the community was encouraging them to give a little one a much needed home. So the Dawsons are adopting!
How do you handle family growth in your hood? Does ACR control it? Is it randomly decided by dice?
Posts
I mostly control hood growth. Every sim in my hood has to have at least one child, since my hood is sort of fresh. But after that it is totally up to ACR or their want panel.
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess you can say I go between letting ACR handle it and me butting in when I think I need to. I have the majority of my female sims on birth control. I start them on it around 16, but I might be changing it. Since a lot of teens don't practice birth control riligiously.
ReplyDeleteNormally, if I have a couple who keeps trying for baby on their own, then I will take the female off the birth control and let them "go at it." But if I roll my ROS and it lands on the get pregnant option then they have to get pregnant.
-Monique, I don't hear of many hoods that have a requirement that their simmies must have children, usually it's the opposite.
ReplyDelete-Riverdale, the good old ROS does throw a kink in the plans of our sims and ACR many times.
I use teleporter to turn excess characters I don't play into townies, so the neighborhood would have townies who have histories of their own. It is boring to keep running into townies who are all single, with no kids, with no relatives on the face of the planet, and have mystery sim for their first kiss, etc, etc. Then you can have the townie relatives age up and "die" with the playables.
ReplyDelete-SimCitizen, that's a wonderful idea to have townie families. I might start doing that instead of having my simmies move to other hoods.
ReplyDelete