Pregnant again. The new parents are ecstatic.
Zinnia tries her best to relax and keep her mood high for the baby's sake. Stress can be really bad for a fetus!
Blaze takes care of house repairs and other chores.
And nearly kills himself in the process. Luckily, Zinnia wasn't at home to witness this, or she would have given him hell for putting his life in danger when they have a baby at home and another on the way.
His job itself is dangerous enough - he's recently been promoted to a low-level space explorer, and has recently discovered what looks like an abandoned alien space station.
His job is rather menial - he's supposed to clean up the space debris around the abandoned port and keep an eye out for clues as to where the aliens might have gone next - but it's still space, and space is unforgiving.
Polaris has a birthday. He's a nervous toddler, is distracted easily, and often cries at nothing.
He can never sleep for more than a few hours at time - he's constantly waking up in the middle of his naps, looking around as if he heard someone speak.
When he sees that the nursery is empty, that the voices he hears are coming from nowhere...
...he screams.
Every time, Zinnia comes running as fast as her pregnant belly allows, thinking that something terrible is happening to her little boy.
When she finds him unharmed, she assumes he's just hungry.
For a while, Zinnia and Blaze are at a loss about what to do with little Pol. Teddies and toys seem to only distress him further, while he is comforted by the oddest things; things like touching his mother's hair, and seeing his father in his space suit, and the color yellow.
Zinnia finds that Polaris cries less when she stays in the room with him, so she begins taking him down to the garden room with her during the day. He seems to enjoy the quiet hum of the science machine, but stays far away from the doors.
Hiding.
Lookin' nervous.
A baby girl is born. Blaze and Zinnia have decided to take turns naming the children, and Zinnia comes up with Ambrosia. As far as plant names go, it isn't the best, since Ambrosia is the scientific name for ragweed, a notorious allergen. But it's a pretty name, and Zinnia's great-grandfather was a nectar maker, and it can be easily shortened to Rose or Rosie, so Ambrosia it is.
The same day, Blaze gets a phone call from Josie. His mother, Racquel, has just died.
Does it make him a bad person if he feels peace, rather than grief? Racquel may not have been the worst parent in the world, but she always had a knack for making Blaze feel badly about himself, and never showed him any love that he can remember. So it's very difficult to bring up any remorse about her passing, except in the context of her being Josie's good friend.
With two needy children in the house, Zinnia is beginning to feel a little stressed. Luckily, Blaze gets a promotion the very next day, alleviating her concerns about their finances for the time being.
To celebrate, Zinnia prepares Blaze's favorite dish: fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
Personally, Zinnia feels that it's a strange dish to consider your favorite, but she says nothing as Blaze cheers and wolfs down the sandwiches like a starving man.
Afterwards, Blaze uses his jetpack and they woohoo above the clouds. This helps with the stress relief, too.
Josie and Zoe visit often. Josie is over the moon about her grandchildren, and hopes they grow up to be rock stars or doctors or mixologists. Zoe is a paramedic now, and often has to run at the drop of a hat, but she adores her niece and nephew as well. She and Glenda are engaged to be married.
Smustlin' through life.
Polaris learns about Daddy's job.
He doesn't speak much, even after hours of coaching from Mom and Dad. He seems to always be listening, though.
Even when no one's speaking.
The days pass. Zinnia is pregnant again.
Lily makes a friend.
Even the ants are thriving.
And Ambrosia has a birthday. She takes after her father, but with her mother's face shape.
The same night, another baby girl is born. The house seems suddenly very busy with babies.
She is named Cassiopeia, after Blaze's favorite constellation.
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Notes -
Movin' pretty fast, here. For some reason, maybe because of the hair I gave him, Polaris always looks nervous and/or crazy. So I'm just rolling with that.
I forgot to give any of the kids freckles, but Zinnia has them so I'd like some of her kids to have them too. So if you see freckles show up later where before there were none.... Just pretend you didn't notice, OK?
Zinnia's a much better gardener than Alex was, I have no idea why. It took almost until Alexander's adult birthday to finally grow his first perfect fruit, while Zinnia grew her first perfect tomatoes in like the first week after the move. I was very impressed. I didn't use any of the perfect seeds Alex collected, because they were mysteriously missing from the chest. I was pretty bummed about that, but Zinnia's superior growing prowess is making up for it. She already has a pretty impressive collection of perfect seeds herself; she grows a lot more herbs and roots than Alex did; since Alex made nectar, he mostly grew fruit.
OH, also. I went ahead and tweaked the life stage lengths a little. I know it's against the rules, but I don't really consider it cheating because they're very minor changes. I took a few days off of toddler and teen, one from baby, and added like five to child. Everything else is the same. So really, that would make it more difficult if I ever roll perfect children, because the toddler and teen stages are dramatically shorter than they would. I hope that makes up for me bending the rules a bit ^^"
Be careful with those dishwasher repairs! And watch out for hottubs, too. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteWhatever's happening with Polaris is interesting, poor thing. Voices in his head or actual voices? Maybe ghosts?
I didn't realize Blaze was so cold towards his mother. It's understandable, of course. Especially with how she treated him at his graduation.
That is a really snazzy spacesuit!