Odyssey: Let There Be Light, Chapter 4

Teresa is woken up early Sunday morning with the news that her friend from high school, Francis, has died.  She goes to tuck in Joanne, which makes her feel happy for a little while – but she will feel the lingering sadness from his death for several days.

Howl picks up the violin and spends the entire day practicing.  He is level 9 and wants to master it also.

Joanne has to ask several times but she finally gets Matthew to feed her.

Then he talks to her while she is eating and she is in the high chair for so long that she just has to get out even though she isn’t finished eating.

Matthew and Grace are both on the last tier of the Nerd Brain aspiration and they are only needing to master logic.  Joanne takes her sandwich and finishes it while she watches them play chess.  Boring.

She asks Teresa to give her a bath, which just winds her up.

Teresa tries to calm her down with a story.

And then a second story.

She even works with her on her flash cards for a little while.

Grace is having doubts about Teresa because Joanne left to potty but Teresa is still working through the flash cards like the toddler is still sitting there.  Talk about a delayed reaction.

Matthew masters logic and completes his aspiration.  He switches to the archaeology aspiration next.  He is still in the astronaut career, but once Joanne is a child, he might begin the process of completing the archaeology aspiration.  If he switches to archaeology, he will be the only one allowed to travel and then only to complete the archaeology tasks until he masters the skill.

Leaving them to their own for a little while, Grace and Joanne play with the dolls.  Once Matthew is done with the chess table (it is faster for them to play solo than it is to play games with another person), then Matthew gives the chess table to Grace.

When Grace stops playing dolls, Joanne decides she doesn’t want to play dolls either.  She really wants to go to bed, but she is also getting hungry.  She is distracted by the toys while someone is supposed to be making dinner.  The plan is for her to eat before she goes to bed so maybe she will sleep through the night without waking up bitchy.

Howl masters violin but is exhausted and heads straight for bed.  Everyone but Joanne is going to be waking up starving in the morning.

Howl has received his first warning of impending doom.  I am not ready for this.  I am tempted to let him use a potion to stay around a little longer, but he has completed everything he needs to complete and there isn’t any real reason he needs to stay.  For random reasons, the house as it is currently setup – five sims and five rooms.  The nursery will eventually become the indoor bathroom, but for now it is the nursery.  Teresa and Howl have the pink room, Grace and Matthew have the blue room.  The rocket is fully upgraded.  The toilet and tub are hidden behind the shrubs in the back.  And, the family cemetery is at the top top right corner.  At this point the ghosts are still wandering, but at some point they may have to be moved to a family cemetery off lot, to keep the game playing.

Using Howl’s aspiration points, Teresa plants their first two money trees.

Joanne has a good Monday and masters thinking.  She drove Matthew crazy with her questions and he was very happy to get out of the house to go to work.  That just leaves imagination and she has three days until her birthday.

They have done pretty good keeping Joanne on a normal schedule.  Actually, the entire family has done a good job of staying on a normal, daytime schedule.  As such, Joanne has to stay up until a proper bedtime and isn’t allowed to go to bed early.  She spends the rest of the evening playing with her toys until she finally calls uncle.  She snags a piece of cake before bed and then Grace reads her to sleep.

Speaking of Grace, this is how freaking close she was to the promotion when she came home.

Matthew earned his next promotion – Low-Orbit Specialist, level 5.

Jake comes out to visit with Joanne.  There is something about a sleeping toddler.

Joanne masters imagination and becomes a top-notch toddler.  It will be interesting to watch her wild free will from now until she becomes a child.

Teresa and Howl are also using their free will most of the time now, and they are all hanging out together.  Everyone is happy and energized, and that is because tomorrow is Winterfest.

Apparently Joanne had some unsupervised free time on her hands.  I didn’t notice this when she was anywhere near it, but she is the only one in the house that would have made the mess.

Joanne spends her day playing dolls and eventually she has to stop to potty.  After finishing, she has to think about what she wants to do next.  She thinks, and thinks, and thinks.  She stood there for a long time thinking.

Ahh, she heads inside to watch Teresa as she masters the violin.  That is cool.

Speaking of cool, Joanne’s next decision is to strip down and head outside to run around.  It is Tuesday during winter and she is lucky it isn’t snowing at the moment, not that it would matter that much to her.

After her polar bear run around the yard, Joanne heads inside to hit the teddy bear.  She is way too energized and a little bit out of control.  And a lot of fun to watch.  She has three energized moodlets and one happy moodlet that is boosting energized.  This is called bouncing off of the walls.

Next on the list is a dance party.

Eventually, there is food and then Joanne gets Howl to give her a bath and put her to bed.

Grace comes home with the promotion she should have had the previous day.  She is now Laboratory Leader, level 7.

Howl and Teresa set up the tree for Winterfest and they begin decorating it.  But still no lights.  Maybe next year.

Joanne experiences the joys of potty in the snowy wild.  This is the first winter in Newcrest and the first winter with actual snow.

Teresa is making the grand feast for those that are hungry.  I was distracted and sent Grace and Matthew to work, so they are both gone for the day.

Joanne is bored and following Howl around.  There is so much to do in the house, but no complaints.

Howl is certainly not complaining about having Joanne nearby.

He asks her if she has been good or bad, and she tells him she is evil.

She is sad about the idea of not getting any presents.

Teresa and Howl spend time reassuring her but she doesn’t like the belly laughs.

She much prefers telling the jokes.  I kept waiting for her to make one of them hysterical, but they all stayed in the safe range.

After a trip to the potty, Joanne decided to make a new mess.

Matthew comes home in time to catch her making the mess and he is coming out to talk to her about it.

He scolds her for being naughty and especially on Winterfest.

She objects to being scolded, at any time.

Joanne is very happy when Grace comes home from work.  Grace picks her up for a snuggle and then puts her to bed.

Father Winter came, left presents, helped himself to some orange juice (two glasses), and then left.  No one waited up to ask for presents because they were all already in the gold for the holiday.

Simmers!

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