Toddlers Know How to Party

Addie is very fond of walking around in her underwear, as you may have noticed. So Toby was very upset when, after ordering a pizza and paying the pizza delivery guy, he found the pizza delivery guy outside the house peeping in their windows. PERVERT. He went out there to kick the shit out of the little acne-riddled creep, but he high-tailed it outta there as soon as he saw Toby coming. Toby felt very good about himself after that.

Addie went off to work one day dressed as a chef -- undercover restaurant work? I wasn't aware restaurants were such dens of crime.

That was the last day she worked as a Triple Agent, because she was promoted to International Super Spy that afternoon. When she came home, she was wearing THIS devilish little number:

Toby likes the dress, too.

It must be hard to fight crime in that, but hey, nothing's more important than looking good, right? Or maybe now she does all undercover work, but she only ever goes undercover at super posh soirées where she gets paid exorbitant amounts of money to sip cocktails and eat shrimp. Best. Job. Ever.

With all the money Addie's making in her shiny new dress, they remodeled the house. It now has an upstairs! They're really movin' up, now. What was the bedroom is now the kitchen. What was the kitchen is now Addie's office. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and Eddie's room is half bedroom, half play-area. It's pretty nice.

Eddie grew up to the Toddler stage, after I spent about a week in sim terms wondering why he wasn't growing up, and then realized I had turned aging off and forgot to turn it back on. Oops! Made you guys all immortal for a second there, sorry, I'll just turn it back on so you die like everyone else. There we go.

After I turned aging back on, Eddie grew up quickly and they threw a birthday party for him. A lot of their old friends showed up -- even Tanner Keaton, Addie's old high school boyfriend, and Starla, Toby's daughter (and Eddie's half-sister). It was about as awesome a party as you can expect a baby's party to be. It's time to blow out the candles, and Toby looks very excited while Addie looks like she took a few too many valium:

Hurrah! Addie blows out the candle for Eddie, since his feeble little infant lungs can't conjure up enough wind, and then she places him on the floor. Little swathed baby Eddie sits up, eerily resembling an ancient mummy rising from its sarcophagus. He sparkles and what looks like confetti comes out of him, and then he becomes a toddler and immediately shits himself.

Off to a good start!

Addie and Toby's lives get real boring for a while after this, as they do nothing but work and/or take care of Eddie and never get to do anything interesting -- it's just like having a toddler in real life! But I've documented some of the milestones of Eddie's childhood, so enjoy this photo montage.

Learning to walk. His pajamas have cowboys on them. I wish my pajamas had cowboys on them.

Feeding himself what looks like a clump of dust and hair!

Being read to.

Learning to put square pegs in square holes, important preparation for menial factory work later in life.

Getting put to bed.

Being potty trained.

Making appropriate pooping faces.

Okay, some of these pictures are just for cute factor.

 Eddie discovers that human teeth do not make as nice a musical tone as xylophones do.

AWWW SNUGS.

Raising a child together has strengthened the bond between Addie and Toby. Toby decides to man up and ask Addie to marry him. She's always been the aloof one in this relationship, but he's counting on Eddie to bring them together. He starts romancing Addie, telling her how beautiful she is, how much she means to him, all that crap. He's about to propose when Eddie throws a tantrum because he's hungry.

DAMMIT SON I'M TRYIN'A MAKE AN HONEST WOMAN OUTTA YER MOTHER HERE

After giving the little shit a bottle to nourish him, Toby finds Addie in the kitchen and tries again.

Addie is SO EXCITED, she squeals and becomes The Grudge.

 

TENSO

The wedding is next weekend, when Addie doesn't have to work. Until then, Addie gets to do all the fun stuff you think of when you think of extremely bad-ass international super spies. She raids the criminal warehouse and comes out with bucketfuls of incriminating evidence, and she has to stop an evil mastermind from using his doomsday device to obliterate the town. Real exciting, James Bond type stuff.

And now it's Saturday, the big day. They're getting married in the afternoon.

Toby's not nervous at all, actually. He's just nauseated because he was an idiot and ate some goopy carbonara that had been sitting out all night. The wedding day is off to an inauspicious start. Not only does Toby have food poisoning, but Addie starts the stove on fire.

And gets her hand stuck through the bottom of a bowl of pancake batter, apparently.

Their fire alarm automatically summons the fire department, but Toby gets the fire out all on his own just a few minutes before the fire department even shows up. While he's here, Toby decides to ask the firefighter to join them for their wedding party. He happily agrees.

And yes, Toby cut his hair short to surprise Addie on their wedding day. Upstairs, Addie and Toby have locked Eddie inside a box so he won't cause any trouble during the wedding.

Ha ha! Just kidding. He's just playing in there. They'll drag him downstairs and make him sit through the ceremony just like everyone else.

Meanwhile, the guests are arriving, the bride and groom are chatting with everyone, people are mingling and dancing and thinking about potted plants. It's a good time.

Toby and Addie begin to exchange rings, while everyone gathers around and oohs and awws. They're standing in the wrong spot though, so I tell them to knock that shit off and stand in front of the buffet table and the curtains like I planned, dammit. Okay, commence with the rings and the cooing and the rice-throwing.

Addie has gone stupid with joy, judging from the look on her face.

Maternity Leave

Addie's on maternity leave, which is AWFUL for a Workaholic. A whole week without work! But sims operate in dog years, so it's actually months. Actually, they don't even operate on dog years. It's more like mouse years. Sims are a teenager for about two weeks, and an adult for about 50 days. But when you consider that you can shoot from rank one of a career to the very top of that career in about twelve days if you work hard, it's not so bad. I want someone at Maxis to explain to me how they worked that out. But then I kinda don't, because I'm sure it's arbitrary and ridiculous.

So, to keep her little Workaholic brain happy and sane, she's doing a lot of working from home at the computer.

Suck it, mandatory maternity leave!

Toby spends a lot of time at Addie's now. In the above picture, you can see in the background that he's thinking of ordering a lucky cat statue from the Home Shopping Network.

Much faster than I expected -- in about two days, actually -- Addie goes into labor in the middle of the day, during one of the rare times Toby is at his own apartment. There's no time to call him; TO THE HOSPITAL!

Minutes after Addie leaves for the hospital, Toby knocks on the door. Obviously no one answers, so he leaves. I'm left sitting there staring at an empty house, and I feel like an expectant father in the waiting room. Is it a boy or a girl?! There are no ultrasounds in The Sims. Thankfully, I only have to wait about 45 real-life seconds, about an hour in-game on the fastest speed setting. Man, sims have it easy when it comes to childbirth. What the hell. They don't even have to earn their babies.

A taxi pulls up in front of the house, and I'm pleased to see Toby sitting in the back seat next to Addie. He must have realized what was up and gone to the hospital after he left. Awww. I'm a little less pleased to see that Addie might not be off to the greatest start, parenting-wise.

Last time I checked, it was bad form to hold your newborn infant casually in one arm while in a moving vehicle. Or is that how they do it? I wouldn't know, I've never witnessed a baby being brought home.

Toby, in the meantime, has decided to move in. He brings with him $15,000 and a car, which they sell for another $4,500. That's a nice chunk of baby-raising cash. They'll need it to either add on to their house or buy a bigger one, since they currently only have one bedroom.

As soon as Toby moved in (therefore as soon as I gained control over his actions), Addie gave him a makeover. New outfits all around, but he wouldn't let her cut his hair. He's still looking a lot less goofy, though.

Addie also started training Toby on the treadmill. At first, things were a little rough.

But he soon got the hang of it. Then a few days later I noticed he was running on the treadmill all on his own, and I noticed something.

Daaang, Toby, you lookin' fine. I mean, that guy is HUNKY now. Not only is he totally buff, but when he moved in, his other two personality traits (besides Neat, Over-Emotional, and Couch Potato) were revealed. Toby is also Brave and Friendly. And hey, when you think about it, the other three aren't so bad. A Neat guy will clean the house on his own; Toby's already making the bed every morning and cleaning the bathroom regularly. And "Over-Emotional" could just mean sensitive. Women always want sensitive dudes! And, well, a dude's allowed to be a Couch Potato. Let this be a lesson to you, ladies. Sometimes a crunchy, frumpy coating can hide a delicious, chewy, muscular, chore-doing, sensitive, brave and friendly center.

DANGIT ADDIE, PAY YOUR FREAKIN' BILLS. This is a different repo girl. I don't know what happened to old terrified nailbiter. Maybe she decided repossessing things was too stressful, since she was terrified constantly. I'd quit my job if every five minutes it had me hunched, cowering in fear. I guess the mystery of what was scaring her will just have to go unsolved.

Oh, right, they have a baby and everything. Sorry, I kinda forgot, because babies are boring. WHAT, don't give me that look. They are. They lay around all day and do nothing except when they're hungry or poopy or lonely, and then they cry until you fix whatever's wrong, and then they go back to sleeping and drooling everywhere. Anyway, they named the baby Eddie. I haven't decided if it's short for Edward or Eduardo, because Addie looks kinda Mexican.

Addie needs to submit more reports to the police station. To do that, she needs to question more people. I'm lazy, so I have her go see if she can question the next-door neighbors again. Things may have... developed, or something. She heads over to Pauline and Hank's house. It turns out they have another visitor at that very moment: Starla Newby. Toby's teenage daughter.

Starla surprisingly does not want to rip Addie's guts out for destroying her home life and causing her parents to split up. Addie learns that Starla is a Virtuoso (musically talented), a Heavy Sleeper, and Insane. Jesus H., an insane teenage daughter? No wonder Toby was so eager to leave home. I wonder what fun traits Lauren Newby is hiding up her sleeves.

Meeting a new person is convenient for Addie, because she gets to question her! However, just as Addie's busting out the notepad and bright orange pen, Starla wanders off. Maybe she saw something shiny in the distance, or the voices told her to do it. I dunno, bitch is crazy.

Toby and the Interesting Development

Addie is depressed.

She spends her free time moping around at home and pigging out, and at work she pushes herself as hard as possible. It paid off in the form of a promotion, as if she didn't have enough of those.

One day after work she hits the gym since her employers have been pushing her to be even MORE physically fit. She's so athletic that twice now she's gotten calls from her old contacts in the Athlete career, begging for her to come back and be an athlete again. Too bad, suckas. She belongs to the badge now.

While at the gym, she glances at the swimming pool area, and GASP. WHAT IS THIS SHE SEES? Could it be... an eligible bachelor? She watches him climb out of the pool, then goes to chat him up.

Things are going swimmingly. His name is Toby Newby, and he's Neat, Over-Emotional, and a Couch Potato. Well... hey, you're not perfect either. "So," she asks coyly, "are you single?"

Turns out he isn't. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They had such a connection, too! Addie is going to die having had sex only one time in her entire life. With a fat, slobby loser. THE HORROR. Our heroine returns home feeling very discouraged.

The next day, she just can't stop thinking about Toby. It's her day off, so she invites him over. Wife or girlfriend be damned. She was actually at the gym with Toby when Addie met him, and she looked like a blonde bitch anyway. To hell with her.

So Addie invites Toby over, and then, completely of her own volition, puts on some sweet R&B tunes and answers the door in her underwear.

If that doesn't send Toby a clear message, I don't know what SWEET JESUS WHAT IS HE WEARING. Those are purple and black vertically striped pants. And they have suspenders. With a yellow and red -- heeeey. That's the same shirt Derik wore! This is weird.

Whatever. Addie's desperate. Toby is the first remotely attractive man she's seen in years, even if he is a little chubby, even if he does have glaring personality flaws, even if he goes out in public wearing -- *shudder* -- that. And he seems to be into her.

He follows her into her house and they get to talking. Addie puts on the moves. First she compliments his personality, then his appearance. Then she tells him a flirtatious joke. Then she straight-up flirts with him. Smooth, right?

 

Aww yeah, massage time. He's clearly appreciating her affections, single or not. One thing leads to another, and Addie goes in for the kill. But wait! Toby protests. He doesn't want to cheat on his wife. Or girlfriend. Lauren, I think it was. He doesn't want to cheat on Lauren. Flirting is all fun and games, but extramarital sex is another story. Twice she tries to get him into her bed, and twice he turns her down.

So Addie, in a move that makes me both proud and disgusted, convinces Toby to break up with Lauren. Admittedly, it doesn't take much convincing; basically she suggest it and he pipes up, "Okay! Lauren and I are over." Now get into my bed, says Addie, and this time he listens.

Woohoo! They woohooed.

Ugh, this GUY.

Having had her way with him, Addie politely shoos him out of her house. Okay, it's been fun, see ya later! I'll call ya sometime.

Satisfied, at least for the time being, Addie returns to the daily grind. She's promoted to "Triple Agent," which sounds like a brand of dishwasher soap. She's just one promotion away from the top level of the Secret Agent branch of the Law Enforcement career.

But something's not right. She wakes up in the middle of the night to throw up for no reason. And she keeps thinking about baby bottles. Then her pants get snug in the waist.

It's time to have a talk with Toby.

He takes it surprisingly well. His reaction:

Yes, he double fist-pumped. Then he even gave her a "good job" pat on the arm and gave her a thumbs up and a wink. I missed it the first time, but later I got another opportunity to photograph this great expression:

I don't think you can expect a better reaction from a guy when you tell him you're pregnant with his child.

Toby agrees to help Addie throughout the pregnancy and be a part of the child's life. He really is a good guy. At least Addie got knocked up by an honorable dude. We'll just forget the part where he left his wife and teenage daughter to fool around with Addie. That's not important now. What's important is

ADDIE IS GOING TO HAVE A BABY.

 BABIES BABIES BABIES.

I LOOOVE BABIES.*

By the way, I find it amusing that Woohooing with Toby gives fewer Lifetime Happiness points than spending $400 at the spa (350 points versus 750). You know women! They hate sex and love pedicures.



*I've observed that this is the usual reaction of a female human to the notion of their own species' young (and many other species' young, for that matter). I thought I should keep up appearances if I'm going to keep blending in with you people.

Cops and Robbers

JUST LOOK AT THIS SAUCY BITCH.

Addie's been busy. Remember how she was a Patrol Officer? Well, now she's heading up her own elite team of secret service agents. Aviator shades REQUIRED. The residents of Sunset Valley can sleep soundly at night knowing this lady's on the beat. Criminals beware!

Okay, so, actually all Addie does is spend six hours a day at the police station doing god knows what, and then she goes into the neighborhood and questions innocent people, then goes home and spends all night writing boring reports about these boring citizens' lives. I'm hoping some exciting development will occur, maybe something scripted into the game already, because otherwise, boy, being a special agent is really boring. Where are the gunfights? The cars exploding? The secret plots to kill our heroine?

Since she shot up the ranks so quickly, she's already swimming in simoleons and has some free time. It's time to see what ol' Derik is up to! She calls him up and invites him over for Round Two. Maybe he won't make the same mistake twice. When Derik gets there, though, it's not what Addie or I expected. Derik has already advanced to the next life stage: Yep, the Elderly stage. When I said "ol' Derik," I didn't mean OLD Derik.

Addie has no interest in dating a geezer, so she tells Derik she just wants to be friends. He's understandably upset.

Addie calms and comforts him, and then he leaves -- on good terms, I think.

But now what's Addie going to do? She has no other love interests. The ones she had at the beginning of the game all moved away except for Derik and Tanner. Tanner's married (and a Slob and a Loser, let's not forget). All of the other males are ugly or mean or taken, and half the town's population is old people. It's like trying to find a date in my hometown.

To make matters worse, Addie has just made the transition from the Young Adult life stage to the Adult life stage. Her biological clock is ticking. She needs to find a baby daddy, and fast. The whole point of this blog is to chronicle the lives and stories of Addie and her descendants, but if she HAS no descendants, it's going to be a very short story.

There's only one solution: Addie needs to go on the prowl.

Now that she's all dolled up, Addie is ready to hit the town and --

... go fishing. Dammit, I can't leave her alone for one minute.

However, there is an exciting development! Across the park, Addie spies this suspicious-looking woman:

Subtlety is clearly not her strong suit.

Addie SPRINTS the fifty or so yards to where the woman stands, then nonchalantly introduces herself as if nothing was up. Right off the bat, she learns that "Jodie Arias," IF that's her real name, is Athletic, Unlucky, and Evil. EVIL!

Pressing the investigation, Addie inquires about Jodie's career, and Jodie casually reveals she's a Burglar. Honestly, Addie's a little disappointed. Her first encounter with a real criminal, and said criminal doesn't even play hard to get. She's all "Sup, I'm a criminal, arrest me plz k?"

Oh well. Might as well question her.

Jodie complies without hesitation! At first, anyway. Usually a questioning ends with some revelation about the sim's personality traits; this time, it ends with Jodie fleeing the scene.

Jodie gets into a beat-up looking car, and I follow where she goes with the camera. She heads straight for Pauline Wan and Hank Goddard's house and goes inside. Pauline and Hank are Addie's next-door neighbors! Addie tails the criminal and asks to come inside.

When she takes a look around, though, Jodie is gone. Either she's escaped through a secret door or she's hiding somewhere. Her own neighbors, harboring a criminal! To make matters worse, Hank is a cop himself, and a good friend of Addie's. She goes home feeling dejected. No more prowling for Addie.

The phone is ringing when she gets in the door. It's a complete stranger calling to tell her that another complete stranger, Jared Frio, has died. Addie has no idea who this is.

"Uhh, okay."

One last idea pops into Addie's head for finding out more about this Jodie Arias. She grabs her cell phone and invites her over. "Sure," Jodie says. "I'll come right over!"

Wow, Jodie is DUMB.

Actually, without her burglar mask and burglar hat on, Jodie looks strikingly familiar. Who does she remind me of...?

 
HOLY EVIL TWIN,  BATMAN!

What's going on here? Who is this woman?! WE MUST KNOW.

Addie wastes no time in questioning Jodie again. This time she learns that Jodie is a Mooch and a Kleptomaniac. In an attempt to gain more of Jodie's trust, Addie cooks her some spaghetti. Jodie is on her way to the table, spaghetti plate in hand, when the phone rings. She suddenly drops her plate of spaghetti on the floor, says "I gotta go," and bolts out the door. Addie, frustrated, lets it go to voicemail.

The voicemail message is not good. It's Elizabeth calling to tell Addie she should visit, because Agnes is getting old and won't live forever. What an ending to a terrible day. Addie goes to her computer to write up a quick report on Jodie Arias before bed, but all of her notes are gone. Vanished! Did Arias steal them? That minx!

The next morning, Addie finds her notes on Arias. It turns out she had just misplaced them while in her foul mood. She sits down to write the report right away.

When that's done, Addie drives up to her mothers' cabin to visit the ailing Agnes. No one answers her knock at the door. After waiting around for twenty minutes, she drives home to find a message from Elizabeth on her voicemail. Agnes had passed on that morning.

Filled with grief and regret at not visiting Agnes more often, Addie drives out to the cemetery to visit her mother's grave. Yes, she's been embalmed and buried already. Sim morticians are very efficient people.

Well, I think this is a good note to end a post on, don't you? Everyone loves a tragic ending.