The painting is of a bunny standing in the rain. Because spring is often rainy, I guess.
With the end of winter comes the end of Shanti's maternity leave. She's excited to get back to the grind, and is determined to work hard to help provide for her family.
Alexander spends the day teaching Ida to talk.
"OK, now say 'riding a bicycle is a healthy, environment-friendly alternative to driving alone.' Can you say that for me?"
It takes most of the day.
The hospital decides Shanti should give a free clinic at the park, in the middle of Sunny Bakshi's performance.
Shanti feels bad, because almost no one was at the performance until she showed up, and each patient leaves immediately after the diagnosis. No one sticks around to see Sunny's magic tricks.
Still, she performs her job perfectly, as usual.
This is how medicine works in the Sim world.
Rain has her birthday alone while her mom is on call and her dad is in the basement making nectar. Instead of a crib, she gets a bunk bed shoved in the corner of the nursery.
This is less than ideal, but it will have to do for now.
Kitty slippers are the way to go! Rain has gained the Animal Lover trait to go with her Artistic and Disciplined ones.
The bunk beds are pretty cool, but being woken up at 2 in the morning by a hungry toddler's screams is most definitely not cool. Rain stomps off to go get a snack. For herself.
Alexander takes care of Ida and stops in the kitchen for a chat with Rain. When she expresses her interest in the arts, Alex offers her use of his easel when he's not painting. Rain agrees that she could probably paint way better landscapes than him.
"Uh, yeah, okay. Speak your mind, kid."
Rain is looking forward to her first day of school. She's a pretty precocious child, and even the thought of having to do homework instead of playing with the peg box all afternoon fills her with excitement rather than dread.
Despite the interruption in her sleep, Rain wakes up early the next day, several hours before school starts.
She teaches herself how to use the computer to sign up for ballet classes at the school. The artistry and discipline of the sport appeals to her. She also spends some time practicing writing before the bus arrives.
The rain does nothing to dampen her eagerness.
Ida's getting pretty good at this game.
And Alexander is proud of himself for breaking the nectar maker.
"If I'm overworking the thing, that's a good sign, right?"
Poke poke poke.
Shanti has the day off work and spends most of it reading, both in the library and at home with her medical journals.
Alexander makes one of his biweekly trips to the consignment store.
His umbrella may be broken, but his hopes and dreams are very much intact.
His nectar is selling for a couple hundred simoleans a pop these days, and he's putting up some of his best quality produce for consignment as well, mostly things he can't make nectar out of like herbs and garlic and such. His most popular non-nectar items are his Perfect-quality Spotlight mushrooms, which sell for well over a hundred simoleans each. He's very proud of them.
Rain brings a boy named Earl Steel home from school.
"White is the most disciplined color, because it's the most difficult to keep clean."
Earl is the only child of Christopher Steel and Tori Steel (previously Tori Kimura). He's cowardly and athletic, and is easily impressed by Rain's serious approach to life. They have a common interest in physical fitness.
Rain insists they finish their homework before doing any play. She really likes doing homework. Earl really likes.... computer games.
Ida has to play by herself these days, but Rain makes sure to spend some time with her baby sister in between chores. Homework first, then chores, and then playtime.
While in the laundry room she notices her bed is gone, in place of which is a door that wasn't there before. She opens it to find...
Finally, a real bedroom! Since all her schoolwork and housework is done, Rain feels okay with checking out the new costume chest.
"'Rawr' means 'I'm gonna eat you' in dinosaur."
Good nutrition is important, even for Pouncing Pink dinosaurs.
Earl dresses up as a prince... or earl, if you prefer.
Earl is afraid of yetis. But in his imagination he has the power to become a brave, yeti-slaying prince.
Forgetting that her friend is a coward, Rain tells a scary story about mummies that attack in the dead of night.
Her Dad's garden room is a pretty creepy place when the lights are off.
Afterwards they have a water balloon fight in the yard, cut short by Earl's insistence that it's too dark to play.
Shanti spends time with her daughters before it's bedtime for the kids. Earl is agrees to sleep over on the condition that he gets a bedtime story as well as a pink sleeping bag. Pink is his favorite color.
Shanti obliges her daughter's first friend, even though she believes the children too old for bedtime stories.
Sweet dreams, kids.
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Notes -
There seemed to be a bug in my game that made all the toddler boys (and some girls) age up with no hair. But I didn't realize it was a glitch until much later, when I was using MasterController to look through all the child-aged sims in town, and that was after I took screenshots and everything for this chapter. So Earl shall remain bald, but I added random hairs to all the other kids. :P
