Chapter 24: Kids and More Kids

Shortly after Arthur's birth, Sacha is pregnant again.

Jazz is ecstatic.

Maternity leave is long, and Sacha has a lot of time to practice cooking.

This may look like a normal cake, but it's actually a PERFECT cake.

"Ow... my arm... ow..."

Speaking of cake? There is birthday cake for Arthur's age-up, but no pizza.

"Criminal."

Leona apologizes for passing along those ear genes.

A second boy is born. His name is Martin, and the impressive Riverview doctors say he's a genius.

Randy takes Leona's death harder than anyone.

Leona herself shakes Grim's hand like a champ before departing. She feels her daughter is going to be fine, and she can rest in peace.

  

Sacha isn't so sure she'll be fine.

Maybe Jazz can help.

The next day, Sacha is afflicted with killer nausea, so Jazz handles Arthur and lets her rest.

Jazz hopes to take his sons adventuring someday.

It takes a while for Sacha to not need a constant shoulder to weep on, but when that happens Jazz returns to Egypt, as Leona would have wanted. His last trip was quite profitable. ...Or it would have been, if he could find a buyer for broken pottery. He's not selling any of the gems he found, no way.

"I'm here for your stones, dog thing."

Jazz is also here for butterflies.

He'll name all of these "Cleopatra."

Back to tomb trolling.

Do NOT follow Jazz into a tomb, if you don't share his "lucky" trait.

Sacha isn't as "over" her mother's death as she allows Jazz to believe.

Get off of there!

"Your Grandma wouldn't let me have any cake. You're a lucky boy."

It's never an inappropriate time to strike a pose.

Sacha has been meaning to destroy her mother's bedroom to expand the kitchen, but can't bring herself to do it yet.

She's pregnant again.

Listening to the music box in Leona's old room soothes her anxieties about parenting three small children; she and Jazz wanted a big family so they could pass on their various eccentricities, after all.

Speaking of pregnancies, Halen is on her third as well.

Kenji has passed on and Zoya has moved across town with her husband, Hans. Thus, the lovely house next door falls into Halen's capable hands. Unphased by the cold vibes she gets from her twin lately, Halen invites her grandfather over to see Rickie (now a child) and Rickie's new twin siblings.

"I've re-checked the electrical sockets and everything is safe," Halen reassures her grandfather. "C'mon in!"

Josephine and Drumheller, a girl and a boy, make a third straight generation of twins. Their father is the infamous Edwardo Quick, who wouldn't be seen anywhere near Halen in public.

Stop it, Jazz. Just stop it.

Arthur becomes a child.

He likes the telescope.

Leona isn't sure she approves of Jazz's relic collections. These horrid things are a far cry from beautiful vases.

Arthur greets the ghost nonchalantly.

"Genius and garbage both start with G."

Martin is already a toddler, and the birth of little Pavel Archer makes three boys of different life stages in the house. Sacha has given their nursery a makeover, with fresh wallpaper and rugs.

She wanted to name her third child Parsley or Chervil or something, but Jazz convinced her to "honor her Russian heritage" instead. He wasn't about to see one of his kids named after food.

Since the boys are growing quickly, Jazz decides to update his image with a manly hat.

Marty has his father's face.

Nothin' like home grown burgers.

An archway was installed. Sacha decided her room needed a more dramatic entryway. That's the door to her room there, next to the tiberium Jazz intends to use in some sort of gem transfiguration experiment.

Randy paints Martin. Digitized Martin.

Arthur can only go to one of Halen's parties if he's properly supervised.

"And that's basil... you know I kind of wanted to name you Basil."

"These are my eyes."

Arthur's painting style differs from his great-grandfather's.

Fang-care is very important for vampires.

In Egypt again. It's been a bad day.

Bad day.

Tombs can be lonely places. ;.;

"Fought a mummy today... you know... the usual."

Jazz calls his wife long-distance.

A particularly bad place for a nap.

Jazz takes a job from someone who thinks her ancestor slept with a queen.


They don't get along.

I don't think this is legal, Jazz.

 Pavel becomes a toddler. He has his father's hair color, and is the first child born in this house with small ears.

_________________________________________________
Etc.: So, that makes all three kids for generation three. I was shocked and mildly disappointed to see little Martin develop both the ears and the blue hair of his ancestors, but he makes an adorable kid later.

I didn't get to pick Martin's first trait (probably due to Sacha's late arrival at the hospital), and the game assigned him "genius." I was annoyed, but then I got over it. His second trait is artistic. It's a pain that the game only allows toddlers and children a limited selection of traits. If you want more than two of the "adult" traits, you have to either cheat or create the sim in CAS in the first place.

I also wanted Pavel to be a girl, for variety, but I don't always get what I want.

Josephine and Drumheller were initially assigned really awful names, so I renamed them to suit Halen's tastes. Drumheller is a surname I saw on someone's file at work that day.

And... Sacha's cooking! I've had several sims be at cooking level 10, with every challenge completed, and still no perfect meals. Sacha made perfect hamburgers and baked angel food cake the first time she ever tried. What the !@#$.

Again with a full age bar, Randy FINALLY received the omniplant opportunity. I was nervous he wouldn't be able to complete it before he died. I was a fool, though... because once again, Grim took like forever to show up for the poor old man.

The goal for Martin's generation is: couple, one child, primary income stylist, secondary income busker, perfect children, and random [edit: I messed the "random" part up because I didn't understand the rule and ended up re-rolling]. I'm sad about the one child limit, since the genetic experiment with Sacha here produced some amusing results.