Chapter 2.9 | Rules for this challenge | Chapter 2 Interlude 1

Generation Two: Brown

Appearance: Brown hair, unkempt clothing style
Traits: Loves Outdoors, Loner, Child of the Island
Aspiration: Beach Life
Occupation: Conservationist
House Goal: 20,000 worth

Days Gone By

It’s another beautiful day in Sulani, and with Kali big enough to watch her brother and sister, Aleki and I are once again able to have a leisurely morning swim out by our dock. Kali has her breakfast, and is all ready to go to school when we get back. We give her a hug goodbye and head inside to get back to being parents of two little ones.

After Kali gets home from school, she does her homework and then plops down at her beloved activity table. Since I’m working on my last point of Logic for work, I’m close enough to her that we can sit and chat.

While I’m studying, though, my phone rings. It’s Austen, and he has more bad news. Meilani miscarried again, and this time the doctors said they should simply stop trying. Austen agrees, I mean, they’re not getting any younger – but it doesn’t lessen the blow of losing yet another baby. I decide Kali has enough to worry about, so I don’t tell her the news, but I save it to tell Alexi later.

After what must be one of the fastest aspiration finishes ever, Kali decides she now wants to be a Whiz kid, so I spend what’s left of the evening reading to her and teaching her to play chess.

Unbeknownst to either Aleki or I, Maricela ages up all by herself upstairs and wanders around, checking out her new territory. Not finding anyone to play with up there, though, she quickly gets bored of it, and ends up alerting us to her presence with a temper tantrum that would wake the Kraken.

The week goes on, with Aleki taking his “Zen” moments at his water garden as often as he can, and both of us playing tag-team on the parenting. I tell you what, things can get pretty crazy with three kids around a house.

With Aleki’s aspiration being Mansion Baron, he’s up to the part where he’s supposed to own more Art. So he spends a few days working on actual paintings instead of commissions for other people. He turns out some pretty good stuff, but nothing worth even close to what he can make with commissions. They do add a nice “feel” to the house, though, as we hang them up here and there.

Maricela is quite a troublemaker, and got into the flour while I was making Jayce’s birthday cake. We planned to invite the family over for his party, but it ended up that a good portion of the family couldn’t make it.

…. Which made Jayce very sad.

Dinner at the party was a little subdued, and I quickly shuffled everyone off home and told Jayce he should check upstairs… It didn’t take him long to discover that we’d made some purchases.

One of the rooms was now decked out just for him – and it even had room for some pets. Kali grudgingly agreed to share her art bench with her brother, because apparently he grew up with the Art Lover trait as well, and seemed to want to be just like his big sister.

The other nice thing is that we’d finally been able to afford fixtures in the upstairs bathroom – so there was no racing down the stairs in the early morning hours for anyone in the family. (Which, in my opinion, is a good thing – we don’t need anyone falling down the stairs!)

However, those furniture upgrades weren’t cheap, and Aleki has been working day and night on commissions to pay for them. Pair that with trying to keep up with a constantly naughty toddler, and neither Aleki or the toddler seemed to be getting enough rest.

I quickly stepped in and put Mari to bed, and sent Aleki to bed, too. The paintings could wait for tomorrow.

I still visit with Squirt as much as I possibly can, and she’s always glad to hear little tidbits about my family life. As she says, the life of the “two legs” (us) is particularly interesting, because she couldn’t imagine not being in the ocean all the time. She was also happy to hear of my major promotion to the top of my career… now I’m the boss around work, and I can dictate even more conservation efforts around the islands.

Mom stopped over to see the kids the day after the birthday party, and our little Charmer Mari was more than happy to try to monopolize all of her visiting time.

We didn’t much mind, though, because it’s so cute watching them play together.

Mom helped me tuck in our littlest monster, and then we were able to have a real talk about Dad. We both missed him terribly, but life goes on – and I expressed just how glad I was that she was still around. At least my kids would get to know one grandparent!

“Hammy” – as Jayce has named his new pet – has turned out to be a really cute family addition, and we practically fight over who’s going to take care of him next. He certainly isn’t lacking for attention, and his cage is always pristine.

Mari is slowly learning to talk, even if she’d much rather be making messes. I don’t remember either of my other kids being quite as rowdy as she is.

Every time we turn around, there’s another mess in the making. I swear, I might as well just leave the mop and bucket out – but then, they’d probably turn into her playthings, too. I even caught her playing in the toilet, of all things, the other day. What a mess that was!

Now that work is so much less stressful, I’ve taken up a new hobby. I bought myself a Diving Camera, and have started taking pictures of the deep ecosystems in our islands. It takes time to get good photos, but I’ve found my photography has definitely been improving with the practice.

The pictures that I don’t sell to the local galleries have gone up in our bedroom, giving us a daily (well, nightly) reminder of just how precious the life around us is.

Chapter 2.9 | Rules for this challenge | Chapter 2 Interlude 1