Baby Off Board

Well, this has been an interesting past few days. Interesting mostly because my job closed for the first time in six years due to bad weather, then I was out a total of three days with something similar to the stomach flu (never did make it to a doctor to find out what it was before it went away). So, now I'm back at work, trying hard to remember how to do what I do, but at the same time, not really caring to remember that badly. Oops, did I say that out loud? They gave us our annual bonus checks yesterday, so I could have afforded to take a few more days off, but I was getting stir crazy at home (my wife was snowed out of school the same days I was home sick, so I really didn't get much of a break, you see).

I actually started writing this post Monday, and was having a horrible day then, but I scrapped the first paragraph to rewrite one for today, and I'm glad I did - the old one was far too whiney. We're supposed to be getting more bad weather out here in the next few days, and considering I had to use a pickaxe to clear the ice/snow they plowed in front of my driveway, I'm not really looking forward to it - but I'll live. Let's see what our sims are doing, shall we? We're dropping in on the Wilson family, where we find Katrina is still very pregnant. It seems just yesterday she was beating up everyone she came across Downtown, now she has a mystery bun in the oven...


Katrina: "Maybe if I drink enough water, the baby will swoosh out..."
I can tell you one thing for certain…the baby does NOT belong to Andrew Pearson. That's a freebie (in case there was any doubt). There was speculation about whether or not the baby's father had any idea there even was a baby, but since there had been no male visitors Katrina seemed to have any familiarity with since she turned up pregnant, it seemed likely that the father probably didn't know yet (if indeed he ever would). Now, normally, the whole romance thing didn't seem to matter too much to Mia Kay, but here Katrina was unexpectedly pregnant (indicating the possibility of a prior "romance"), and Aimee and Antonio had started recently acting all mushy toward one another…Mia Kay was suddenly feeling a little left out.


Mia Kay: "Here's an idea guys…get a room!"
Come on, now, Mia Kay, jealousy doesn't become you (nor does spitefully killing other sims with the weather machine for that matter). There's someone out there for everyone, it's just that sometimes it takes a little waiting to find them (and a little effort, which Mia Kay didn't seem to be putting forth). Now, as you might have guessed, news of the whole baby thing was eventually passed on to Katrina's parents, Marty and Kitty, and they decided it might be nice to pay a visit before the baby was born. They didn't come alone, though. Kitty and Antonio's father, Zander Wilson, dropped by as well. Not to be outdone by Zander's sharp dressed look, Antonio greeted everyone sporting his fabulous work suit.


Zander: "Colonel Sanders? I've never heard of him!"
Heheh…Zander was never intended to resemble "the Colonel", I was just shooting for a "distinguished old guy" look, but something in my subconscious must have been guiding me without me knowing it. I really don't like fried chicken much, though, so it's still a little hard to imagine. Anyway, I don't want to go any further down this rambling path…back to our regularly scheduled programming. Zander had a lot of catching up to do with the family, considering he hasn't visited them since who knows when (it can't have been too recent, though, since he never showed in the original neighborhood posts). Katrina's baby wasn't the only sim he had yet to meet - he hadn't met Aimee yet either, although judging by his reaction, he didn't seem terribly impressed when he saw her (it's kind of hard to tell sometimes what these whacky sims are supposed to be thinking, even by their body language.


Zander: "Eh…I've seen worse, but I've also seen better!"
Folks basically hung around and chatted and tried to kill time any way they could, and the expectation was that Katrina was supposed to be having her baby soon (at least according to my math it was about time for it to happen). And so they waited, and waited, and waited, but no baby. They may have thought the waiting was a big chore, but it was nothing compared to having to run to the bathroom every five seconds like Katrina was getting to do. Perhaps the thing that was hitting her the hardest was not being able to use the hot tub (which I might have thought was some sort of glitch if I hadn't used them myself enough in real life to read the little sign telling pregnant women not to use hot tubs - how responsible of EA to include that). She was forced to kill time hanging around in the house telling dirty jokes to everyone from her roommates to her grandfather…


Mia Kay: "Yeah, actually, your butt does kind of look bigger..."
Thank goodness for gambling and the fact that there's no warning against pregnant women playing poker (or if there is, EA hasn't heard about it yet). Some families gather around the dinner table to spend quality time, but by this point, the poker table was the place to be at the Wilson house (if you got a close look at the "dining table" indoors, you'd know why). Zander saw it as a great opportunity to have a chance to talk to Katrina a bit about the whole baby thing, and get to know Aimee a little bitter, just in case her and Antonio ever actually married. Oh, and it was also Zander's chance to try to guess who the father was, which seemed a little presumptuous since he didn't actually know anyone in town, but he had heard guesses from some folks (especially Antonio).


Katrina: "No, he's not the father. How do you even know Homie?"
It was a little freaky that everyone insisted on talking about Homie, because honestly, nobody in the Wilson home has ever really had any contact with him, and I don't know where the obsession comes from, besides the fact that everyone loves a clown (that may be the case, but Katrina certainly didn't "love" him the way everyone seemed to be suggesting). Oddly enough, the people who seemed the least worried about who the baby's father was were Marty and Kitty. They've always been pretty easy going types, even when Kitty was going through her fame phase, and I guess they just assumed that as long as Katrina had half the common sense of the two of them put together, she'd have been smart enough not to get jiggy with a werewolf or vampire or other unsavory, potentially bad father type sim.


Kitty: "As long as he's not as big a loser as your dad was when we met, you should be fine!"
Really, by this point in time, nobody really cared who the father was. I mean, if he was any kind of decent guy at all, he'd surely have heard Katrina was pregnant and dropped by to see how things were going, but nobody had seen any likely suspects around the house, and I can tell you for a fact he hadn't come by. Frankly, everyone was a little tired of the whole "who's the father" bit, and decided they didn't give a damn, they just wanted the baby to be born so they could say hello and get on with things. And if he/she happened to resemble the mystery parent, so be it. You can only focus on mundane things like dubious parentage for so long in a neighborhood so full of other interesting stuff like werewolves and vampires and the Grinch (who, by the way, is also not the father). Well, eventually…


Marty: "Oh, she's okay. It's probably just gas from too much soda!"
Nice guess, Marty, but no, it was in fact baby time (finally). By this point, the wait had been so long for guests like Zander and Marty and Kitty that they'd basically forgotten there was even supposed to be a baby on the way. It did arrive, though, and it was a boy, and Katrina named him Seth. Those folks who were hoping to figure out who the baby's father was based on looks suddenly remembered one fundamental fact about sim babies - aside from skin color, they all look the same! It was no different with Seth. He even had Katrina's skin tone, so even that was of no help. Oh, well. Everyone dropped what they were doing and came over to say their hellos to Seth and welcome him into the crazy, crazy world of Monkeesims.


Poor Seth…one of his earliest memories will be Grandpa Zander half naked wearing those shorts...
It felt good for the family to finally be able to focus on other things again. Having to wait around for a baby to pick it's own time and place to be born always puts everything else on hold for a while, and with Seth out and about, it was time to start thinking about other things. Things like the fact that everyone in the family had a job and someone would have to quit theirs to watch after the baby (you might think it would be Katrina, since the baby was hers, but you'd be wrong). Yes, despite her initial dislike for the working life, Katrina had grown attached to her easy job at Radio Shock, and didn't want to give up the opportunity to get out and rub elbows with people and make a few bucks. For the time being, Katrina and Mia Kay simply took turns calling out from work to watch Seth.


Seth: "Wait! Don't leave me alone with these people!"
Well, that arrangement may work in the sim world, but sure wouldn't fly in real life (actually, that's what maternity leave is for in real life, but we won't got there). It became obvious after a while that something was going to have to change about the work situation if Seth was going to get enough attention to learn the fundamentals of being a toddler when he got to that point. That sort of thing would be a headache for another day, though (there's a reason so few sims in the neighborhood have children, you know). Coming up next, now that the anticipation of Katrina's baby's arrival is past, find out what the older Wilson family is doing to line their pockets (hey, living in that big, elaborate house costs money, you know!) Till then, have a good one, and stay cool!