Welcome back to Familiar Faces!

Chapter Twenty-Six: Serendipity

"But Sir there isn't room for four adults to sleep in that room; will you need a roll away?"

"It won't matter two of us won't be sleeping."

"I see. Very good sir, now are you visiting the village for business or pleasure?"

"Pleasure, absolutely pleasure this is kind of a second honeymoon except we didn't really have a first honeymoon. Pre-Bon Voyage Wedding and all. We've been looking forward to this for years."

"All four of you? Sir?"

"Just let me sign the dang register."

It may have been a bit confusing to the hotel staff but it made perfect sense to David and Titania. By bringing Ted and Eva along with them on their trip to the Far East they had a chance to get to know Ted a bit better. The two mixed couples also provided each other a good bit of a balance. Titania had someone to chat with over meals.

While David and Eva were able to wander the various tourist sites companionably late into the night while their other halves took advantage of that thing called sleep.

Of course late night wanderings did lead to potentially bad encounters. Luckily the Unsavory Charlatan realized that Eva was much scarier than he could ever be and decided that he'd do best to just answer her question regarding interesting sites and then flee the lot. Eva's reputation proceeds her half way around the world.

With good cause apparently, the problem or the joy depending on your point of view with playfully mean sims is that they can never leave a fountain unbubbled. Even when it's at scared shrine, I guess they were lucky that David and Titania didn't dream of Twikki and Jumbok when they planned their second honeymoon.

Eva's actions caused her to be politely if forcibly removed from the tea garden.

She of course protested her removal by confronting the venerable wise man of Takemizu Village.

"If you don't want your sacred fountains to be filled with soap you shouldn't be leaving them around out in the open like that. What self respecting prankster could ignore an invitation like that?"

The wise man being a wise man and all turned the confrontation into a parable for living. He told a tale of the wild horses that refused to be tamed, and turned it into an epic adventure that kept the family enthralled for hours. Each of them walked away with their own moral from the story and none could believe that the tale they'd heard was the same as that which the others had heard.

It was after hearing the wise man's tale that David gave his consent for Ted and Eva's marriage. As soon as permission was granted Ted got down on one knee beside the wise man's sacred lake and proposed. Eva happily accepted and they decided that they'd get married in early fall after he had begun his internship at Familiarity General.

All in all it was a very pleasant vacation, even the bees that followed them back to the hotel from their tour were deemed to be "worth every penny".

But all good things must come to an end and Titania had grand babies to get home to so the family soon packed up and returned home to Familiarity refreshed and revitalized.

And indeed there were grand babies galore waiting to be welcomed once they returned. If you recall there were five pregnancies on hold at the end of the last chapter. Puck and Dorme's second child a daughter named Emilia was born in late summer. Like her brother, Emilia has her mother's alien skin tone but unlike Egeus, Emilia is a blonde.

Soon after his sister was born Egeus Summerdream celebrated his childhood birthday. He was soon on his way to learning the important lessons that life has to offer. Such as bubbles are for blowing not drinking, drinking bubbles not only tastes bad but it tends to give you really weird hiccup effects which were surprisingly fun.

Egeus was also quickly on his way to making friends with a good portion of the extended family that comprises Familiarity. At this point the town has grown to such a point that it is virtually impossible for any one sim to be friends with everyone else in their generation but Egeus is trying as hard as he can to dispel that rumor. Egeus has a reputation to live up to; the family friend count in his household pushes 120 sims.

_____________________*Shown with Egeus is Emlen Indie. Emlen is the son of Dante and Deirdra (London) Indie. The genealogy of Familiarity is very twisted at this point. Egeus and Emlen are fourth cousins as both are descended from Abe Familiar. In a round about way however they are a bit more closely related; Emlen is a first cousin to Egeus's step first cousin's Ezra and Ezekial Capp (Elliot and Deanna's sons). So I guess they are step second cousins or something? Whatever they are pretty good friends.

The boy destined to be Egeus's bestest of all best friends forever was also growing up at about the same time. Erasmus Goth son of Bottom and Alexander also celebrated his entry into childhood near the end of the summer season.

Like his first cousin Erasmus is quite the charmer and was soon building a stable of friends to drag and be dragged home from school by. The two eldest of the seventh generation's 'first circle' are born leaders both are very outgoing and extremely nice with just enough of a serious side to willingly get down to business.

And they both have younger siblings to deal with. Alex and Bo welcomed second son Euclid to the family soon after Erasmus became a child.

For now the younger siblings aren't much of a concern to the bigger boys. Egeus and Erasmus are more interested in perfecting their strategy for world domination.

They have plans and the plans call for many planes, and who better to ask to provide them with planes than a doting grandfather? This particular doting grandfather isn't willing to go along with the plans for planes just yet. They should have approached their step grandfather David. Dave would be a bit more apt to back plans that include mayhem and destruction than Oberon.

The family as a whole tends to gather as often as possible. Hardly a week goes by when one house or another isn't having a barbeque or a picnic or finding something to celebrate. Depending on the host household the mix of family members invited will vary. Dov and Elle tend to get a pretty large group together seeing how between them they have eight siblings once all the steps and the halves are included.

Even being pregnant the perpetual popularity sim Elle wasn't about to forgo a reason for a get together. The only thing that being pregnant meant was that she bowed out of the more raucous water balloon fights and instead stayed inside for a *cough* peaceful *cough* game of Don't Wake The Llama. The Familiar's take their gaming seriously though so it's difficult to call anything they do truly peaceful.

In fact Elle's pregnancy didn't stop her from doing much of anything. She had goals to reach and a life plan to follow. If the carpool wouldn't pick her up for work that didn't mean she had to stay home, she could drive herself, couldn't she?

While Dov worried that Elle was over extending herself and wished that she would just relax a little bit and take things easy, he had realized long ago that once Elle's mind was focused she wasn't easy to sway. He knew that she wasn't entirely happy about having a baby right then, her plan had been to top her career first but Wright (and ACR) have a way of tossing plans out windows. So instead of making an issue of her continuing to work right into her third trimester he made sure that when she was home she ate properly and rested as much as possible. Surely she'd relax her pace a bit once the baby was born?

As things happened Elle gave birth early in the morning on a nice sunny day in late summer. The birth went quickly and Dov had barely had time to jump out of bed and be startled by the commotion before Elle was handing him his new son, kissing him goodbye and running out to catch the carpool so that she wouldn't be late.

"Well Elijah it looks like I'm going to have to figure the parenting thing out on my own today. I'm new to this; I might make some mistakes so I hope you don't hold any grudges. Your mom and your grandparents will be home tonight to fix anything I might do wrong but we'll just have to tough it out on our own until then. Sound okay to you?"

*Urp*

"Lesson one don't shake the baby."

Aldric Familiar was feeling as if he was a pretty lucky guy all the way around. He'd wake up in the morning shower and dress, rub Emma's belly for luck and then kiss his wife goodbye as he was heading out the door for carpool.

Coming home from work - most evenings with a promotion - he'd often stop by the florist to get Emma flowers. His death experience had made him appreciate the small things life had to offer even more than he had before. He figured he was lucky to have the life he had and even luckier to have a wife he loved as much as he did Emma. As the wise man once said 'You gotta tell her about it.' And so he did, in words and actions whenever he could.

"Em?"

"Hmm what's up? Are you all done with your reading for the night?"

"Yeah I think I'm pretty set for now next couple of promotions should be in the bag."

"Great, I'm almost done with these if you want to watch a movie or something?"

"Yeah hey I was wondering, what happens if the baby is twins?"

"Then we have two babies instead of one, why? Do you want twins?"

"No. But it could happen right? Your brother has twins and there have been twins in your family before and apparently twins happen in my family as well. And if we do have twins how does the whole heir thing work?"

"Well I guess it could happen but it's not really that common in our family. As far as the heir bit goes first born is heir, even with twins one of them would be born first."

"And that's what's important huh? Nothing else matters except being born first. First born is automatically more important more special?"

"It's not like that Aldric. It's a title that's it. It's the houses and the business; it's not the important stuff."

"Aldric, you and I aren't like your parents. There are people with big hearts and there are people with small hearts, we have big hearts and those hearts have lots of room for lots of people inside them. We won't love every child the same, because every child is different. But we won't love one more than another we'll just love them for who they are and because they are ours."

"How do you know? Maybe I am like my parents maybe. . "

"You're going to be a wonderful father; you being worried about it only helps prove how much you care. Now come on let's pop some corn and watch that movie."

Speaking of twins, in a round about way at least; Eddie and Effie had twin puppies and keeping with our normal boy/girl rotation we keep the little girl which was named Rowan. The dogs always seem to have white undercoats as puppies no matter what they are going to look like as adults so we won't know until she grows up whether we'll have yet another tan coat or if Effie was finally able to break the trend and help bring a new color combination into the line.

"If we do have twins she won't make us give one of them up will she?"

What? No, kids aren't like puppies at all. Come on don't make me feel guilty overly the dogs. A there's no need to worry about the pup with all the kids in town at the moment it won't take that little guy long at all to have a home. There are numerous descendants of the original Familiar dogs running around the hood at the moment. Between the dogs in the main house and the cats that are descended from Al and Robin's original two there's hardly a house in town that doesn't have a pet with just as long of a lineage as the sim occupants. We're big on mutts and mixed breeds in this town.

Between their vacation and the time for their wedding Ted was living with the Familiar's. It makes for some interesting crowding situations having six adult/elder sims living in the household at the same time. It also means that when Eva gets it into her mind to go open the vegetable stand for a few hours that Ted gets to go with her so that they can both work on badges. Of course Eva has no concept of sleep and tends to want to do these types of things in the dead of night.

But Ted is learning ways to stay awake - exercises behind the cash register, drinking enough espresso to get the jitters and then finally being allowed to energize once the customers have gained enough stars and bought enough bland oranges to get him out of the green danger zone. Ted knows that he's going to be spending most of his life trying to keep up with Eva and he's got to practice somehow.

Eva has earned her gold sales badge and along with it she learned how to occasionally put on a show for certain customers, mainly just the ones she likes. Thankfully she likes her Uncle Dwight cause if she'd been mean to him I would have had to hurt her, not that Dwight couldn't hold his own of course. It's just that his mean streak doesn't go as deep as Eva's.

So don't let her fool you she still has some work to do on the whole interpersonal communications thing.

"Daria, just smile and nod and buy the juicer. If you really don't want it, go around back and give it to Uncle Dave and he'll give you your money back. It's easier on everyone if you just play along with her."

"All I did was ask if she was going to be restocking the cucumbers soon. Momma says the cucumbers here cure whatever ails ya."

"Your Momma knows what's true."

"Denise come in here and look at what the Baby Fairy left us! What are we going name it? Can we name it Cool Ranch?"

"Uh Dane Honey you were right there in the room when Elise was born don't you remember?"

*stares blankly* "Oh right"

Dane really is oblivious to most every thing; I don't make this stuff up. Denise went into labor which of course brought everyone in the house running including Trent Traveler who'd been hanging in the hot tub for the past day or so. Dane woke up but paid no attention to his wife and newborn, he was much more concerned about Trent being there. Once he got past the fact that there was a strange man was in his bedroom he had to stomp his feet and throw a fit because he was stinky and wanted a bath. He ended up walking right through the commotion and into the bathroom to take one, much to the relief of everyone else who had to stop their panic/cheer over the baby to repeatedly tell me how badly he smelled.

Upon discovering Elise hanging out in the nursery later though he became a rather doting father.

Of course Dane's not allowed near the baby all that often if Demi is around, no one is. Demi has wanted a grand baby ever since she turned elder and she's milking the spoiling for all her worth. She's pretty much given up hope of Delphy providing her with any and figures that Denise and Dane are her only hope.

Or are they?

"UP! UP! Del UP! UP!"

"Well hey there Euclid, uh you don't look too happy at the moment. What's the problem?"

"UP!"

"He wants you to pick him up Aunt Del."

"Me? Well, I don't know about that."

"DEL UP! NOW!"

"Just pick him up and jiggle him a bit he likes to be held, he just had a bath so he shouldn't be too smelly."

"Okay so you're up now what do we do with you Euclid? Do you want to go see Mommy? Or maybe Daddy would like to hold you for a little while?"

*pat pat pat*

"Look I'm not good at this kind of thing, no offense or anything I'm sure you're perfectly nice and all it's just ?"

"Kisses Pleas Tank You!" *smack smack*

Euclid Goth may only be a toddler but he already knows how to squirm his way into someone's heart. A habitual charmer from the word go he's able to conquer even the most cynical and make them melt a little bit. Delphy couldn't help the little tug she felt deep down when she snuggled him, maybe kids weren't such a bad thing after all. Just thinking that was a bit of shock to her system.

Meanwhile back at the ranch David and Titania were shocking Eva with their flirting. I have no idea why she'd be shocked by it at this point; it's pretty much all they do besides tell each other dirty jokes. Eva has David's personality so it's not as if she's one bit shy though I guess it could be the whole you're cheating on my invisible pollen donor with your wife that's upsetting her but she's never showed any signs of jealousy before. Ah well if anyone ever really figures out their sims I'd be happy to hear the answer.

All around it was a day of shocking and exciting events around the legacy household. Eva went to work and surprised me by coming home perma plat having achieved the make 100,000 achievement. I wasn't really even watching her count at that point since I thought it would take her a whole lot longer to accomplish. I remember that she got a pretty good chance card while she was in the business track and she did top three different careers and get the bonus's from that but I guess the Vegetable Stand makes more money than I thought with everything being ridiculously expensive or something. I was so surprised I forgot to put the walls up in order to take her picture. EEP!

But anyway Grats Eva!

That same evening David decided that he wanted to try out the whole summon aliens thing. He'd spent much of his early adult hood trying to get abducted but it had never worked for him but maybe this newly found skill would do something.

Much to his surprise he was able to summon aliens or perhaps it should be that aliens summoned him? Either way he doesn't look nearly as happy about being abducted as he thought he would be back in the day. In my way of thinking it's actually a good thing this skill hadn't been available when he was younger, six kids was plenty and as much as I would like an alien baby in the main house at some point I'm glad he has no chance of having one now.

Since David's abduction had the house awake anyway Emma and Aldric decided to get a few more chain dates in and maybe they'd manage to knock out Emma's lifetime want that night as well. Their usual pattern was to do a dream date or two after Aldric had finished his skilling for the night. The motive and aspiration boosts from the dates were normally enough to keep Emma out of pregnancy driven motive desperation and Aldric plat for promotions, it was a win win situation.

Just when I think I couldn't love these two any more than I already do they decide to toss a twirl into their slow dance routine. I don't know if it's a freetime thing or what but I've been seeing a lot more twirls recently, and almost every one of them have been when one of the sims was pregnant. So maybe pregnancy ups the odds somehow or other.

While Emma and Aldric were being supremely adorable in the study David was being returned from his alien encounter. His return was greeted in a different manner by each of the people that ran out to welcome him home. Eva was 'worried', Eddie howled, Ted covered his ears because the space ship was too loud and Titania laughed uproariously. Neither Aldric nor Emma made it out to greet his return because they were a little pre-occupied.

But not in the way you might think.

I'm not sure if it was the twirling or the shock of her father being returned from his alien encounter. But the newest member of the Familiar family decided it was time to make its appearance. I assume that Aldric felt letting Emma know she was hot even when she was in labor was a compliment of some sort. But somehow I doubt it helped all that much though it probably made her feel good.

Welcome to the world Frank Sinatra Familiar - "Frankie"

The newest Familiar heir has his Daddy's brown hair, green eyes and the lightest skin tone.

"Mom can you take Frankie and get him set up in the nursery?"

"There's nothing I'd enjoy more."

"Thanks Mom, Aldric and I have some unfinished business to take care of."

Their date timer was running low and it just wouldn't do to celebrate the birth of their son with an okay or a good date. Power gamers that they are the two of them didn't have any problems pushing the date into dream category. Aldric wasn't even late for work.

The date that they were on was Emma's fiftieth dream date. If townies didn't get their memories erased when moving into playability it would have been Aldric's forty-ninth dream date, the only actual date that Emma had been on with anyone else was back in high school when she dated Komei.

Emma now wants to be Minister of Education. I could comment about the type of curriculum a Pleasure Sim might implement in a school system, but I won't. I'll just say that there's a reason all my kids go to private school.

As soon as the date was over and Aldric was on his way to work, Emma went into the nursery to check on her son. She sent up a little prayer of thanks that there was only one child in the nursery, while she didn't share her husbands concerns she understood all too well why he had them. Having had twins would have been a constant reminder to Aldric of his own childhood and of Almeric who was still out there someplace.

Extra special days call for even more flowers brought home from work for Emma. It's a good thing Emma likes flowers though I don't know maybe shaking things up from time to time with a box of chocolates would be a good idea, additionally the birth of a baby generally equals something of the sparkly variety. Not that flowers aren't good I'm just saying.

About twelve hours after Frankie's birth Aldric finally gets a chance for some one on one time with his son.

"So I guess I'm supposed to say something prophetic and reveal to you all the secrets of a happy life, and then when you get to be my age your supposed to look back and say 'you know what my old man he's a really smart guy'. But I don't really have anything all that prophetic to tell you, except stay away from cow plants."

"Okay so my advice stinks right you could have figured the whole cow plant thing out on your own. Come on Frankie don't cry. Oh Wright I broke the baby, he's not even a day old and I broke him already, Emma's going to kill me. What? Right ok not broken just dirty, we can fix that I hope. Changing diapers can't be that hard. Hey stop squirming so much this isn't as easy as it looks."

"Okay so that wasn't so bad we'll just stuff those six or seven practice diapers down in the bottom of the pail and not mention them. I'm going to go ahead and apologize now for all the stupid stuff I'm going to do in the future because I know I'm going to make mistakes I'm new at this whole Dad business but hopefully we can figure it out together. I want you to be happy Frankie, just be happy."

The crowding in the house was getting to be a bit much for everyone; there are only two double beds. Even with three couples living in the house there isn't really a need for more than two doubles since neither Eva nor David actually sleeps but it means that there is a little bit of musical beds when it comes to 'other' activities.

When Titania is tired she's tired and she doesn't really care where she sleeps. But Emma and Aldric being the only couple in the household that actually 'sleeps' together are a bit territorial when it comes to 'their' bed. They kept having to remind Titania that Aldric sleeps with Emma.

Thankfully the situation won't last for all that much longer.

Because Ted and Eva are finally getting married!

I didn't want to do another wedding party on the main lot this generation, and Eva wanted to buy another community lot so they temporarily purchased a beach lot out in the burbs for the wedding.

The wedding went fairly well, even if hardly anyone actually paid attention to the actual wedding; except well of course David who loves a wedding if only for the aspiration fodder they always seem to provide for him. He's pretty much run out of possible relatives that can get married in order to fulfill his most persistent wants, so he's started with the give me grand babies and let me be friends with them wants.

Being friends with the grandchildren is a want that I whole heatedly support. David and Titania really are good grandparents, they always have time to listen to a joke or play a game of catch with the kids, though playing catch with Grandpa David is more like playing dodge ball. He calls it a life lesson in not being a wuss.

Being the only two grand kids old enough to attend 'Aunt' Eva's wedding Egeus and Erasmus eventually got worn out from being played with and went in search of food. The picture pretty much shows the main difference between the personalities of the boys; Erasmus is a slob and Egeus isn't.

As the wedding party progressed, everyone (even Adonis) behaved themselves and most of my couples decided to be adorable with each other simultaneously on the dance floor.

The one bad point of throwing a wedding on a community lot is that you can't really prevent gate crashers, and there's always going to be at least one person that wants to complain about the mess that they most likely just made themselves.

Ted being the congenial type guy that he is takes a diplomatic approach and suggests to Bella Board that if the dirty plates really bother her that she can feel free to clean them up herself. Bella then happily goes about earning a star for the business while cleaning up the entire lot.

Eva being the non congenial type of gal she is doesn't take criticism very well at all and tells Cynthia Kim just where she can shove the dirty plates. Cynthia soon stalks off the lot with a flaming thought bubble of Eva and will continually try to bad mouth her and her businesses to anyone that will listen to her in the future.

Somehow both methods are effective in stopping complaints.

As the party wound down there was time for one last dance.

Being a parent could be a lot of fun at times.

It was one of those rare days when Elle had the house mostly to herself. She had the day off, Dov had a meeting at his office and her in-laws were at work. Elijah was down for his nap and she was looking forward to digging in and finishing off those few remaining cleaning points that she needed for work. Being a slob cleaning had never come naturally to Elle so she'd never really worked on raising the skill. She really didn't know what Cleaning had to do with Law but well apparently it did.

"Daddy! Let me out! Daddy!"

"So much for getting any work done today, why did I give the Nanny the day off?"

"Daddy!"

"No want Daddy!"

Unfortunately it was an all too common refrain. Dov had more time to spend with Elijah. More time for the fun stuff; for playing, for listening to the toddler's chatter and for telling him stories. Dov could work from home just as easily as he did from the office and most days he did and so he was a constant presence in their child's life, while Elle seemed always to be rushing in and out of it.

It didn't hurt that Dov took to the whole parenting thing much more naturally than Elle did. As an infant Elijah had seemed so tiny and holding him had always made her a bit nervous. It had been more comfortable to let Dov just do what he did so well and now the two of them were buddies.

"Sorry bucko Daddy isn't here today you're just going to have to tolerate Mommy instead."

How was it that other people could seemingly balance things so much more easily? The faster she was able to move up at the office the faster she'd get to the point where she'd have more time to spend at home with her son in the future, but trying to move up fast at work meant not having as much time to spend with him now. He was growing up so quickly and she seemed to be missing a vital part of the formula.

When she was able to take the time to spend with him they seemed to have to constantly rebuild their relationship.

Sometimes being a parent could be frustrating.

And Wright help her but she was pretty sure that she pregnant again already.

"I just don't get why you're upset about it. You want more children right? You always said you wanted at least two. Sure it's a little quick, I kinda want to wait until Frankie's out of the nursery before we have more but that's the way it happens sometimes."

"Not at least two just two, one boy one girl. But I didn't want them so fast. I thought I'd have time. I thought I'd be at the top of my career by now but I'm not and with the new baby there will be an even longer delay before I am and it's not what I had planned."

"What's the rush to top your career? It's not like you need to work or that you need to top this career, you're already perma plat. What are you going to do when you top this career? Will you then decide you want to top another one? And will you put off enjoying life even longer just so that you can chase that one too?"

"Emma don't you dare belittle my goals."

"I'm not belittling them I'm just trying to understand when is enough going to be enough. First it was twenty best friends and boom gotta get that done right away had to do it before you even got to college, then once you got to college the goal seemed to be earn the MRS and okay that ones done now it's time to be a lawyer and after that maybe you'll have time to enjoy the life you've built but then again maybe you'll find a new cause or a new goal and off you'll go."

"Elle there's nothing wrong with having goals, goals are good. But you're so wrapped up in reaching the next one that you don't take the time to breathe and enjoy the ones you've already reached. You barely have time for all those friends you made, or for your husband and son let alone the rest of us, and when was the last time you threw a real party or took a night and went out with Dov. You need to give him some of your time as well."

"Em I'm pregnant, I'm obviously giving Dov some of my time."

"That's not what I mean and you know it, don't pretend to be dense just because you don't want to admit I might be right."

"Elle you don't have to put aside your dreams, you just need to relax your schedule. You don't want to be an elder and look back and see all the things you missed or lost because you were too busy racing ahead. Just think about it okay?"

"Do you feel like I'm neglecting you?"

"What would give you the idea that I'd think that?"

"Just something Emma said about how I needed to take time to enjoy what I had now or I might be looking back and regretting what I'd missed or lost"

"What else did Emma tell you?"

"Why does that sound like there's something you're afraid she might have told me?"

"Because she might have seen something and gotten the wrong impression from it; and maybe I should have told you myself but I didn't think it was all that important even though I knew it would upset you if you found out some other way?"

"Why don't you tell me and let me decide if it's going to upset me or not?"

"It happened a few weeks ago when we went to Bo and Alex's. You left early and I was there by myself surrounded by your family and yeah maybe I was feeling a little bit neglected cause here was a chance for us to relax and enjoy ourselves but you were tired and had to get up early and I want to be supportive so I didn't argue. Daxia noticed my mood and she made an offer to cheer me up maybe I considered the offer for a moment but ultimately I turned her down."

"Why did you turn her down? Was it that you weren't interested or was it because you just didn't want to cheat on me?"

"Sunshine I haven't been interested in anyone else since we got together. I don't want anyone else but you. I just want more of you and that makes me feel greedy. You've always been completely open about your plans for life, and had a pretty good idea how much work it was going to take for you to fulfill those plans so what right do I have to stand up now protest and ask you to set aside some of them because I'm not completely satisfied with being second in your life?"

"Dov, you have every right. I guess I have been looking too far ahead trying to reach the end goal and not taking the time to enjoy where we are. I'll slow it down I promise and if I start reverting tell me to cut it out and make me see what I'm doing to us. I don't want to lose us."

Elle's second pregnancy was a little bit different than her first; she didn't wake up every morning in a rush to get out the door in order to make it to work. Instead her schedule revolved around Elijah's schedule she got up when he did and napped when he was tired. She took it easy and refused all calls from work.

She took the time to go on dates with her husband and they hoped to find the time in the not too distant future when they could take another vacation together just the two of them. But they weren't going to press to formalize those plans because who knew what the next few years would toss them. Elle would have to learn to be a bit more flexible, she was set to top her career and it would happen eventually there was no rush.

It was a good thing she was learning flexibility or else going into labor in the middle of her son's birthday party might have upset her it wasn't at all part of the party plan. Dov had just gotten Elijah to his cake when she felt the first pangs and there wasn't any way to delay either event. The party guests didn't know whether to cheer for the baby or to shake their noise makers for the birthday boy.

Elle hadn't even had the time to repaint the nursery between Elijah moving out and Elisha moving in. Elisha didn't notice the blue walls nor did she really care when they suddenly were pink instead.

Elijah Familiar is a mix of his parents appearance wise, he has his mother's eyes and hair but many of his father's facial features. Personality he's mostly Dov fully playful and a just a tad grumpy.

Once Elle was back to work after her maternity leave it didn't take all that long for her to reach the top and become The Law. For now she's content to stay where she is and not run off chasing after yet another landmark. When she returned from work after reaching the top, there wasn't a fanfare of congratulations or a party in the making. But her son came running to welcome her home with hug and a "Mom!"

Sometimes just being a parent was reward enough.

For Deanna it wasn't a matter of finding the balance it was a matter of finding the energy. Initially she'd planned on doing sewing from home while her children were small, but with the twin terrors on the loose there was rarely a moment that she could sit down and do any sewing. By the time she got her patterns out and got to work they'd be awake from their naps and wanting attention.

Sometimes, rarely she could get both Ezekiel and Ezra settled and interested in playing together for a few moments. But it normally didn't last long enough to do more than take a shower. There was no longer such a luxury as a bubble bath these days.

Both she and Elliot were a little over whelmed by the constant demands that the twins put on them. There were so many things that they wanted to do with the boys, but by the time everyone had been fed and bathed and they'd worked on one of the toddler skills all four of them were about ready to collapse.

And don't even think about getting a full eight hours of sleep in one go. You were lucky if you got a cat nap in before one or both of the boys were awake and in need of some kind of attention.

Thankfully the toddler years were coming to a close. Surely the child years couldn't be quite as exhausting could they? The boys would sleep through the night and go to school during the day. Deanna would have some time to work on her sewing or maybe even get a job out of the house for a little while.

Of course she and Elliot still wanted to have more children so maybe it would be best to keep putting off getting a job for now. She'd be busy shuffling them back and forth to after school programs, and to the homes of their friends and family members. Being a full time Mom was just as much a job as working in an office was no matter what her mother in law Juliet thought.

For reference Ezekiel (Zeke) is the red head his twin brother Ezra is the blond. I've found that the only way to tell the two apart easily is by hair and/or eye color though they do have a few other minor differences appearance wise. Personality wise they are fairly similar as well though Zeke is more outgoing and Ezra is nicer.

Sometimes being a parent could be a lot of work.

Being a parent could be fun, it could be frustrating, it could be rewarding and it is defiantly a lot of work. It was a job in itself no matter what other jobs might be held outside the house. The paycheck isn't something given monetarily.

Emilia Summerdream has elf ears hiding under her blond hair she's perfectly neat and perfectly nice but don't expect her to be a perfect little lady she's going to have to be a bit rough and tumble if she wants to keep up with all the boys.

The payment given for the job of being a parent is the joy in cheering with them as they experienced triumphs; and the ability to be a buffer for them when they face disappointments. It's in the smile and in the hugs and the comfort from knowing that they are safely tucked into bed at night.

Euclid Goth is charming young man. To the delight of Mortimer and Bella he's a bit more Goth in his appearance than his brother despite the brown hair. Personality wise he's pretty even keeled without many extremes.

When you take on the job of being a parent you take on a full time position. One that doesn't offer many vacation days and never comes to an end. Even after the children are all grown up the duties of the job are still there. The benefits change a bit and the promotion from parent to grandparent is the best promotion of them all.

Just ask Dave, he'll be happy to tell you how much he loves his new job. Be prepared though he's bound to pull out a wallet full of photos of the grand kids to show you, so only ask about them if you really want to know.

Heir Frankie Familiar is in a word adorable. He's very much his father's son both in looks and personality. Outgoing and playful he's a bit lazy but Grandpa David will work on that soon.

"Mom?"

"Delphy? Is everything okay it's almost 2am why are you calling so late dear?"

"Oh Gah I'm sorry I forgot all about the time difference, I hope I didn't wake you"

"That's alright, where are you?"

"We're in Twikki Mom remember I told you we were going to go to celebrate our promotions and perma platness?"

"Oh that's right, are you and Dallan having a good time?"

"Yeah Mom we're having a great time. Are you sitting down? I've got some news that might surprise you."

Thanks for reading!The Familiars will be back soon until then Happy Simming!-----------------------------I'd like to offer a general shout out to all the wonderful creators in the Sims2 community for helping to make my sims and their houses look so good. Thank you for sharing your talents with us!