Bouncing Bundles

Well, hello, hello, and a great day to all of you. Normally, this is where I'd tell you all how tired I am today and all that stuff, but I'm not going to do that - because I do every day, and it gets really old. So I'm not even going to bother mentioning that I didn't get to bed till 2am this morning and had to get up at 5am, or that I'm really close to using the toothpicks at my desk to prop my eyes open. Nobody likes a whiner, and I'm not going to be that guy…

My younger brother is visiting from out of town with his girlfriend today, and I'm pretty excited to see him again and meet her for the first time. It's not very often that one of my siblings has a significant other I haven't met, and I'm always eager to make a good first impression. Usually, as long as I don't pick my nose in view of company or belch loudly or forget to shut the bathroom door when I'm in there, I do pretty well. Those are good things to remember to avoid if you're trying to make a good impression (unless it's on some weirdo who thinks that stuff is funny like certain sims do).

Out topic of discussion today - Aiden and Vyn Andrews. Okay, so I guess it can't really be a discussion if it's just me writing here and you reading, but you can feel free to speak your responses aloud and pretend I'm listening, and we'll have the next best thing. As you'll recall, Aiden and Vyn are our hapless young couple who moved out of their parents' homes and got married, with dreams of starting a carefree life of fun and frolic. HAH! The joke is on them, because Vyn got pregnant on the wedding night, sort of short-sheeting those plans for freedom. Aiden decided if he was going to be a father, the first thing he needed was a new look. I tend to agree (obviously, since sims can't make that decision on their own).


Aiden: "I can't even see what I'm eating with these glasses on…"
Yeah, I really didn't like that hairstyle he had before, but now it will be forever immortalized in his wedding photos. What fun would pictures be if they didn't capture us at our worst moments? Heck, that's sort of the basis for this blog a lot of times…nobody likes too much boring, normal happiness, right? I know I sure don't (unless you're talking about my real life, but that's a topic for a totally different blog). Anyway, Aiden and Vyn made sure to give the future grandparents (that word sort of tastes funny looking at Clarence, Amy, Jack, and Regina, since they don't look very grandparently) the opportunity to hang around the house and visit and prepare for when they'd be there constantly to help watch the baby…oh, and to talk to Vyn's belly, which I hope means talking to the baby in her belly.


Clarence: "Glad you did something about that hair, son..."
The upcoming rug rat was to be only the second baby I've dealt with since starting TS2, and I remembered the first as being quite a hectic experience (no offense there, Aiden). Vyn was already a walking, talking child when Jack and Regina accidentally adopted her, so I was spared all the late night feedings and all the other baby and toddler hoo-ha with her. I remember it seemed to take a little while for Amy to actually have her baby, but I honestly thought the bun in Vyn's oven was never going to be done. Well, I guess I just need to learn to be a little more patient, because the time for the blessed event did finally arrive. I just hadn't taken into account that it would probably happen in the middle of the night when everyone was thoroughly exhausted from going to bed too late and at their least prepared to deal with a baby…


Vyn: "Either it's baby time, or the blackened catfish is making a comeback!"
Oh, it was time for the baby alright…or should I say "babies"? Yes, life has a strange sense of humor, and if one baby born at 3am is a handful, two of them means two full hands, and that's what Vyn and Aiden got. The couple had already settled on the name Jaden for their baby, since it can generally be used for both a boy or a girl (how's that for being prepared?), but they'd totally not been expecting two baby girls, so that sort of threw things off. They wound up naming one baby Jaden, and the other Kati. They were twins, but by no means identical - Jaden had slightly darker skin than Kati, which was the only way I could tell which was which when the frantic baby care began (well, besides hovering the pointer over them, but leave me alone…)


Vyn: "Two daughters AND I get my tattoos back…I'm so happy!"
In a way, I guess having two babies helps avoid any possibility of the parents fighting over who gets to hold the baby when and all that…and it also reduces the chances of either of them getting out of the joys of late night feedings or diaper changes as well. It definitely eliminated any chance of them getting a regular night of sleep, since the babies seemed to be on similar schedules. It hasn't happened in a while, but if you look back at like the very second Monkeesim post ever (if you can stomach the huge word to picture ratio from the posts back then), you'll see that a baby was taken by the sim child services lady, and it's had me extra freaked out about that happening again. TS2 seems more forgiving about allowing you time to get to the phone or feed your pet or take care of your baby, but I wasn't taking any risks - if both babies needed tending to, both parents got up, it was as simple as that. Who needs sleep anyhow?


Vyn: "It's okay…I think I can sleep standing up anyway…zzzzz..."
This is where that whole involving the grandparents thing came in extra handy. Aiden and Vyn quickly realized that if they just casually invited the Andrews or Daniels families over, they could count on them to pick up and play with the babies fairly frequently. Granted, it was usually when the babies were resting peacefully and didn't need to be played with, but that seems to be an ongoing issue with Aiden and Vyn anyway. They'll just have gotten the babies to sleep, then they'll walk up to the crib and pick them up (before I can cancel the action). Geez, folks…dance to the radio or something, but give the little people a break here and there, eh? Jack was pretty good about feeding the babies when they needed it, but he had a tendency to do it in his Speedo.


Jack: "Arrr…nothing puts a little lass to sleep like a little Jack Daniels!"
That adds a whole new meaning to "hitting the bottle" there, doesn't it? Anyway, having the grandparents visit and Aiden able to stay home all day long without having a real job meant Vyn was finally able to get out of the house even for a little bit without having to hire that gosh-awful nanny who takes such lousy care of kids. I'd say she probably needs it, too. While I was playing my other sim families, I saw a lot of Aiden out and about during Vyn's pregnancy, but very little of Vyn. Maybe he was out spreading the good news of the forthcoming baby to everyone…or maybe he anticipated a lot of time spent at home after said baby was born. If so, it's a good thing he did, because that's what he was getting, and Vyn was off like a flash…


Vyn: "And I get to wear my new 'hooker boots'…so fun..."
Well, Vyn was feeling the need for a little break from the kids and a yearning for a little fun and frolicking, but she definitely was not feeling like exploring Downtown on her own (what with all those dang impulsive vampires hanging out there). Thus, she headed off to the Freetime Lounge and opted for a foray into familiar forms of fun. Those sims sure do recover from the whole giving birth thing quickly, but I guess they also age from baby into toddler in only three days, so I shouldn't be totally surprised. Vyn met someone new, Alex Kent, and had a nice chat with him to pass the time.


Vyn: "Well, if you don't like being bald, you can always just wear a hat!"
Did you ever notice that in Archie comics, everything the characters ever say ends with an exclamation point? That denotes excitement or yelling, meaning everyone is yelling all the time. No wonder Mr. Weatherbee finds Archie and the gang so irritating (no doubt his excuse for why he yells everything as well). Okay, so that was random - I had that thought though while debating the intricacies of whether to end that last little caption with a period or exclamation point. I think I made the right decision. Anyway, Vyn decided to tend bar for a little bit to get a chance to meet people (certainly not for the money, but we've been over that a million times). One of the many customers was everyone's favorite plant sim, Spruce Hartman. Crab Apple Hartman would have been more appropriate…


Vyn: "You look like you could use some water…heheh..."
I'm sure he's never heard that one before. I'm assuming we're meant to think that that bottle is some kind of juice or booze or something of the sort, but it looks exactly like the Aquafina brand bottled water that you see everywhere out here (unintentional product plug there - it's not even my favorite brand of water…my favorite is tap). Every time a sim hits the bar and starts guzzling out of the bottle, it just looks like they're chugging water to me, which still has it's dangers, like water intoxication. Whatever Vyn poured for Spruce, though, it didn't mellow him out any. When I checked to see how things were going around the lounge a little later, Spruce and Tommy Wolf were going at it. Oh, those two…they're almost as bad as Kitty Wilson…


Tommy: "So what if I ate out of your trash can…you knocked over mine!"
It just never gets boring, does it? That's not true…there are plenty of boring times in the dozens of hours a week I play around in the Monkeesims neighborhood. Be glad I feature pictures, and not real time video of every session - your first visit to this blog would be the last (granted there would be a lessened need for all of these words). At any rate, it's good to see Vyn still enjoying life after the unexpected doubling of her motherhood duties. Hope she's still smiling when they both become cranky toddlers! Just kidding! I'm sure they'll be little angels! Be sure to join us next time! We'll be wandering the neighborhood in search of random, red-hot sim action! You can be sure we'll find it! Oh, no! I've caught Archie comics syndrome! I'm overusing the exclamation point! Noooo!!!!!! :-P