2.13 Halloween!

Even though our little Willow was acting tough most of the time, she was not as grown-up as she wanted to be. One night, when I was checking in on her, I watched her searching for monsters under her bed. It’s not like vampires or trolls would be under there. Duh. They wouldn’t fit. You can totally tell my daughter is a little insane. Not in a bad way, though. Just in a …way. The only thing that would under a bed is a gnome. Or some small monsters we’ve never heard about before. Uh-oh. Let me check our beds before going to sleep tonight.

In daylight, she was an entirely different person. There sure were some difficult moments, but most of the time she was a real sweetheart – she helped cleaning the house and even emptied the potty she had used. That came as a surprise, since I had considered her rather messy.

She was also really curious about everything that was going on in the world, and spent lots of time on my telescope. It was great to watch, but I kind of needed to use it for work. Anyway, it’s not like work was important, compared to my daughter.

I noticed myself thinking about Willow most of the time, much more than about Xander. I guess that’s because I hadn’t really gotten to know to him yet. He was my only son, though, so I tried and spent more time with him. He was a charming little boy, almost never cried and only puked on me one single time.

Time for Halloween! Willow wanted to dress up as a skeleton, but since it was too cold to go without clothes, she just painted her face and dressed in appropriate colors. [a/n: I LOVE those trousers!!] Wasn’t that smart? 

I was kind of out of ideas, so I dressed as a policeman. Maybe I would go out later tonight, and threaten a few parking offenders. Unfortunately, there weren’t many of those in Twinbrook. Most people knew how to park.

Ivy was even worse, she stole my uniform from the hospital, which had been cleaned the day ago, and dressed as a doctor. How boring was that?! Some guests were more creative. Sky, Ivy’s sister-in-law, came as a mermaid. Now that was a real costume!

Oh. Molly also dressed as a mermaid, and even wore the exact same colors as Sky. I have to say, she looked great in that shell bra and that skirt-thing, not wearing anything else. Maybe, if things had turned out differently, we would be together and living in this house. If she hadn’t broken my heart like this. No, those thoughts are wrong. I am happy with the way my life turned out. 

Sky looked happy when I told her I liked her costume. Very happy. Too happy, one might assume, because she conjured lovely roses out of nowhere and gave them to me.

I was in shock. Why had the roses lost their color? What had happened to them? I couldn’t even look at them with being sad, so I had to reject them. Sky looked disappointed, while some women we most certainly had not invited, and who was dressed up as a slutty maid, gave her a look, as to say that she knew this was going to happen.

 

Apart from this, the party was a huge success. Everybody danced, even Willow stayed on the dancefloor, and had a good time. (You could definitely tell that there was only one costume shop in town, though.)

So, apart from an almost-kidnapping, which turned out to be a misunderstanding (I hope!), this was the perfect Halloween night.

At some point, Willow changed into her princess costume and then fell asleep on the kitchen table. A clear sign that it was time to end the party. I wanted to put her into bed, but I couldn’t get her out of the chair without waking her up, so I just let her there for a moment. Apparently, she had a dream about school, because she raised her arm a few times and mumbled something. My smart little girl.

2.12 The benefits of familiar hospitals

Dear readers, I don’t know what to do. Please help me. For a few weeks now, Ivy has been acting strangely. She spends a lot of time sitting around, watching our daughter, which technically is not an unusual thing. I do it myself. But she often cries when she’s around Willow. That scares me, and I’m afraid to ask her what is wrong. Especially since she easily gets mad at me (and anybody else) at the moment. That started a few weeks ago, too.

Maybe she’s sick. She has been eating regularly, just like me, but often she runs to the bathroom afterwards and throws up. Oh God, what if she is really sick? I need to help her. If only I knew how to do that. I can’t lose her already. We just started our little family, and I secretly wished for another child. A boy maybe. 

What is also odd is that she has been cleaning the house a lot. I know, right?! That’s the scariest part of her behavior. Cleaning is not fun at all, it’s dull and boring. She knows that (and I know that, of course. That’s why I try to avoid it as much as possible), so why would she do it? 

In my despair, I actually started talking to myself, asking what is going on here. Willow must have been eavesdropping and, being the smart girl that she is, she once walked over to me and gave my knees a big hug. Why my knees, you ask? Well, I’m much taller than she is. Obviously. Then she started mumbling something. It sounded like “haby”, or maybe “faby”. I have no idea what that means. She must be too smart for me already.

One afternoon, I couldn’t stand the silence between us any longer. When we were watching TV, both exhausted from a long day, I started an innocent conversation by asking her how work had been. She turned up the volume on TV. I got even more worried, and asked her directly what was going on. Was something wrong? Did I do something? Did I forget to do something I should have done? Was she sick? Was she going to leave me? Was she going to quit her job? Too many questions that I wanted to utter at the same time, which resulted in me adding a well-pronounced “wasdidwhatwhy?”. 

She sighed, and then smiled at me. That was a good sign, hopefully. I put my arm around her and scooped closer, which she let happen without saying anything. Another good sign! Then she looked into my eyes, swallowed and then said the words that changed everything.

Ivy was pregnant again. We were expecting our second child, and both of us were hoping for a boy. She didn’t want to influence the gender of the child, though. 

Her second pregnancy went by so quickly. Suddenly, it was already my birthday! I was turning into a real adult. How did that happen?! It had only been a few years since I had moved to Twinbrook, involuntarily, and started that job at the hospital. And here I was now, half of my life officially over.

Even though I didn’t look that different, I was a little worried. Wrinkles would soon start to show, and my body would ache every morning when I got up. There had to be something that I could do about this. Hopeful, I spent hours outside the house –even though it was freezing by now –, doing experiments and analyzing different things. I admit that I had no idea what I was doing, but at least it looked smart. Right? And maybe I was able to produce something that would stop me from aging. Science could do everything.

When I wasn’t on my science machine thingey outside, I took care of Willow even more than before. Ivy was often tired now, and taking a lot of naps, which left me with our daughter. Not that I minded! It was just getting hard to manage job, household and daughter within only 24 hours, now that Ivy didn’t do much anymore. Besides, my hair kept falling in my face, often keeping me from seeing anything. It was time for a change.

But before I had time to see a hairstylist, it was Willow’s birthday. I refused to believe that she would be a schoolchild in a few minutes, since time had tricked me once again. She was still my little baby, and very soon she would be able to walk out of this house and go anywhere she wanted. Sigh.

Her hair had grown a lot during the last months, just like mine, and she decided to wear it down. Just like me. The green strands of hair stuck out rebelliously. My little girl was getting older!

You know who else was getting older? Our unborn baby! Before we knew it, Ivy went into labor, screaming and swearing the entire time. Of course, I took her to the hospital again. Not only because I knew where they kept the alcohol for calming my mind, but also because I knew we had midwives who did an amazing job.

Little Xander was born in the middle of the night, after some nerve-wracking hours. For Ivy, at least. After my third glass of vodka, I was no longer worried. I only choked when I looked at her and the baby for the first time, because I saw two wives and two baby boys there. Phew. That would have been a lot to handle.

At home, Willow decided to show her little brother who rules this house. Even though it says something different on the bell plate. 

Author's notes: I know I said Alfie and Ivy weren't wishing for another baby... apparently they were, I just hadn't played with them for a long time! As soon as I started my game yesterday, Ivy's baby bump appeared, and I was like "...oh". 

And of course the first boy had to be named Xander *waves at Jo* ;) 

 One outtake, because it is too hilarious to be deleted:

This is a test scientists (the skilled ones, not the ones who work in the science career) can do. They throw (!) a duck (!!!) at their opponent and see how long it takes them to catch it (!!!!!). I couldn't stop laughing! Thank you, EA.

2.11 Susie

Hey, guys. It’s me, Ivy. You know who I am, right? Good. My lovely husband tells most of our story, but I also wanted to have a say every now and then. It’s not like he has a lot of free time left for you, anyway, since he takes care of our daughter Willow a lot. This is really great for me, because I’m not very good at taking responsibility or working hard in general. I’m always in for games or some fun, though! We won’t get out of life alive, so we might as well enjoy it.  Take playing chess, for instance: it’s a lot of fun, and you keep your brain cells busy at the same time. Even when you’re playing against yourself.

It’s not so much fun if you lose, though. During my latest match my cell phone rang. It was my sister Seona, who invited me to visit her and her wife Sky in their new home. Of course, I accepted right away. Seeing how the newly-weds lived was much more fun than losing this game. Again. 

When I arrived, Seona opened the door and let me inside. The furniture matched Sky’s clothes, but apart from that there weren’t many things to say about this house. It was old and kind of shabby. It didn’t look like they were really happy there, either. 

When I pointed to a spider on the ceiling, right above the door – and at the same time stepped away from said door –, Sky looked up, only to tell me that this was Susie, their pet. Susie had been there since the day they moved in, and they had made peace with her. Delightful. I decided to return to my husband and daughter right away. Being here was not fun.

At home, I immediately went to check on Willow, who was playing with this ugly doll again. It was heart-warming to see her this happy. We had provided her a good home, with everything a girl could need. Including tons of toys.

Of course, those toys were not for kids only.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t play for very long, before my eyes got drawn to Willow again. I just couldn’t stop looking at her, smiling and laughing. Whenever Alfie told me how much he was in love with our daughter, I looked into his bright eyes, sparkling and kind of smiling, and thought about how lucky we actually were. We had each other, and we had a perfect daughter. Life couldn’t get any better.

As long as nobody tried to hurt us, we were going to be perfectly fine and have a lot of fun together. My husband, my daughter and I. Huh. When I moved to this town, I most certainly didn’t expect this to happen.

But it was happening, and right in front of me. I was bearing a charmed life and I was so grateful for it. Enough of the emotional talk, though.

Hey, Ivy, where are you? I have something I want to tell you, and you’re gonna love it!

Be right there, babe! Okay, guys, I gotta go. See you soon. 

Author's notes: Willow-picture spaaaaaaaaaaam <3 I'm sorry, I can't help myself. ;) I'm now caught up with my writing, so I'll go off and play some more. Finally.
Additional note: I just realized I had to explain how Ivy gets to leave her home, being an idiot and everything. She was invited by Seona and since I was dying to see her and Sky living together, I decided to accept the invitation. Since she can't go there on her own, I helped her, using her free action. She went home by herself.