Manchovies

How close are we to the edge?

Welcome back to the edge of chaos, otherwise known as the third installment of One Million Nooboos.

How close are we to the edge?

This close.

I'll put some kind of barrier there . . . eventually.

Watch your step.

After the harassment from the paparazzi, completely unreasonable for someone who has one whole celebriy star, I thought it was time to enclose what passes for the first floor of the house at present.

The nursery/everything room

 It didn't work.  Evidently, paparazzi are smart enough to figure out simple doorways.  I would never have thunk it.

Traitorous dog

Monkey was zero help in keeping out the paparazzi.


To be fair, I told him to do this.  He had the option for the interaction available and I wanted to see what it looked like.  Cute, huh?

Mia gets her groove on

It was Mia who came to the rescue.  Apparently, paparazzi, who aren't afraid of ranting, raving, camera-tossing celebrities, get their feelings seriously hurt when a tiny kitten is mean to them.


Mia's quite good at being mean.


It also looks like she's dancing with him.  Totally adorable.

If anything, enclosing the house made intrusions worsen

The mail carrier, Pippa, decided to best route to the mailbox was through the house.  She and Monkey have always been at odds, so this time he didn't hesitate to intimidate.

Yes, very, very intimidating.

I'm not fooled by that mask you wear!

Somebody else has the right idea.

Crouching tiger, flying bulldog

I had to tell him to do this, too.  I actually felt bad for the stray.  He was old and actually rather nice.  I just didn't want him playing in the trash.  After this, I moved the trash can to a less enticing location.


But this is supposed to be about babies, isn't it?  The truth is that Malachai's arrival didn't change much in the routine of Melinda and her pets.  Other than waking up once at night to see to his needs, Melinda pretty much ignored her son.


Soon enough, however, it was time for his birthday.


Worst party ever.

Okay, so nobody died, but it was still pretty bad.

The Guest List

Hetty Lionheart

Chase the Paperboy

Lorenzo the Babysitter

Seymore the Maid

Gussie the Dad

Jeana, you'll be happy to know that Hetty was the only guest worth inviting.

Seymore

Lorenzo

Hetty

Gussie

This is how it went down.  Seymore was still at the house cleaning when the party started.  He changed clothes and joined the fun.  As soon as Gussie arrived, he left, complaining that the party was boring.  Seymore was right on his heels.  Chase the Paperboy decided to age up in between delivering the paper and attending the party, so he was then a teen.  He and Lorenzo played video games for awhile before also ditching the party before the cake.  Hetty was the only one to stick around to cake the baby.

Altogether now . . .

CAKE . . . THAT . . . BABY!

Baby stare of death

 I love the autonomous actions of toddlers in cribs.  They go through a cute little cycle of motions and then suddenly their cute little heads snap around to fix you with this deadly stare.

All right, Mom, non-descript gloop coming my way!

 

A much better shot.  Malachai's hair is red, like Melinda's.  His eyes, contrary to my initial evaluation, appear to be the deep blue of Gussie's rather than Melinda's lighter blue.

The other toys are plotting against Mojo the imaginary friend

Melinda and Malachai are the bestest of friends

Malachai and Monkey are not the bestest of friends

I don't know whether something has changed in the game since I last played with small children in depth, but Malachai is one easy kid.  After a couple days of adjusting his schedule, he basically sleeps through the night, going to bed just before Melinda and sleeping until just after she gets up.  Whenever I've played toddlers in the past, there were always long period of crib time when their parents were just too tired to go get them to let them out to play while they went back to sleep.

And that's when there were two parents.

Never too early to start talking about death

After Malachai's birthday, it was time to decide when to proceed with Melinda's next pregnancy.  Her Sims 2 counterpart, Dara Calypso, was always pregnant.  There was no altering the lifespan in such a sweeping way in Sims 2, however, so Dara's kids were always aging up and leaving the house.  I also had a mod to allow me more than eight sims per household.

I have no mods for Sims 3.  It's way too complicated a game already, so Melinda's family will take more planning.

If I'd had Melinda get pregnant immediately after Malachai's birth and after every birth, she could easily have had seven toddlers at the same time.

Not desirable.

However, if I spread the kids out too much, this is going to get boring.  Not to mention that the installments here will get really long with so much time to take pictures.

Not really what I want.

So I opted for a compromise.  Once the current youngest child has learned all his or her toddler skills, then Melinda will try for baby again.

As you might be able to tell from the picture above, I cheated just a little.  She's already in her maternity wear while still teaching Malachai how to talk.  The kid potty trained in a single day, but we've only just now at this writing begun teaching walking.  So Malachai and his first sibling will be closer than the rest will probably be.  It would be a cinch to teach Malachai all his skills in one day in one mad marathon rush, but that would defeat the point of spacing the pregnancies.  An hour a day when Melinda has time assures it doesn't happen too quickly.  At this rate, notwithstanding the birth of multiples, we should have no more than two toddlers at a time, and one of those should be about to age up when it comes time to produce the next baby.

Now for another departure from our original strategy.  Or, rather, a return to it.

The playing for tips idea might not have worked out, but I do really like the idea of multiple fathers.  Dara Calypso had 19 children of every color of the rainbow.  I'd like to see that diversity in Melinda's children, too.

I've already shown you Melinda's next suitor, actually.

She's all yours, young fella

Melinda had a pizza delivered for Malachai's birthday party.  Once I decided not to use Gussie again, I simply went to Melinda's contact tab and chose the next adult male in the list: Joel Brown the pizza guy.

It worked out, really.  I don't know how the game handles the aging of NPCs like Gussie.  He only has three traits and doesn't actually reside in any residence in town, though he is apparently in a relationship with Alouette Bird.  Shortly after Malachai's birthday, he became an old man.  I would likely have only gotten one more baby out of him anyway.

And then the pizza delivery dolly kicked the mixologist dolly's butt and took his girlfriend

Melinda's wooing of Joel was rather different than with Gussie.  It took forever for Gussie to accept an invitation to Melinda's house.  Joel came over right away, but wouldn't cuddle in bed with Melinda.  It took several visits to build their relationship high enough to do so.  Then he rejected her woohoo right there in front of the woohooium.

(My boyfriend asked if maybe the woohooium only worked once.  I'll have to investigate that next time.)

I like my pizza with manchovies!

Sims vomiting in toilets never gets old

Enjoy your impending spin into pregnancy Miss M!

Eventually they were successful, of course, and nooboo #2 was on its way.  Just after the rejected woohoo, I realized that Melinda had earned enough LTR points to earn her the reward to make all her romantic advances successful.  I bought that and it did the trick.  I'm surprised I hadn't purchased it sooner!

Melinda's second labor occurred in the nursery playroom.  Malachai, worrywart that a neurotic, grumpy toddler would be, is a little concerned.

I love imaginary friends and all, but this is seriously like only the second time he's put that toy away and done something else.  The other time he pulled a toy out of thin air to play with.  Creepy kid.

Anyhow, the baby . . .

Introducing Micah Joel Mott!

Melinda wished for a boy, so I obliged and she ate only apples (and one cheesesteak) during her pregnancy.  98 pregnancies left, plenty of time for lots of little girls later.

Micah is eccentric and friendly, a nice counterpoint to his elder brother.

So ends this installment.  I've given up on keeping track of the revolving door of minor pets the Motts have, so I shall only say that Maple the chipmunk and Monty Python the python have met their demise, while Mistletoe the cardinal, McGraw the macaw and Monsoon the garter snake have joined the family.

Thanks for reading!  I hope you'll join us next time!  As always, below are pictures that didn't make the cut.

I pulled a wabbit out of my hat!

He actually pulled it out of thin air.  No one had ever used the various toy boxes in the house, yet Malachai trekked clear across the house from his playroom and began playing with this rabbit.

I am unable to penetrate the force field!

Or catch a burglar.

Looking for horses in Appaloosa Plains?  They're on parade outside Melinda's house

The interior of the house is finished.  Now I'm working on the exterior.

McGraw the macaw, tough on crime (and seeds and nuts)

Large birds can fly around when assigned to the bird tree?!  Awesome contribution to the sense of chaos in a large household.  You can just feel Mistletoe's jealousy!

Dis is a object we don' weally need but we like it 'cause it's ree-listic

And this is a terrific shot of the back of Malachai and Mojo's heads.

Yes, it's a pile of laundry with its own caption

What gives?!  Ten weeks with a washer and dryer and no laundry.  Now the game decides Melinda needs more chores!

See you next time!