The Scatterday Matriarchy 4.7: Okay, Stop. Everyone Go Up A Shirt Size!

“La la la…playin’ wif my best friend…”

Welcome back to the Scatterday Matriarchy! If you celebrate it, I hope you had a great Christmas! I really want to make some progress on my legacy – I’d like to knock out at least two more generations in 2016, depending on my schedule, so let’s continue on with Callie’s generation. One last legacy update for 2015! Last time, Natalie aged into a toddler and bonded with her Imaginary Friend Puzzle, Mitchell grew into a child, and a third child, a boy named Manfred, was born.

Spoiler alert for this chapter: birthdays, man. So many birthdays. Hence, the title, which is one of my favourite riffs from Werewolf, Natalie’s namesake episode.

Natalie may be able to speak with Puzzle, but she needs a bit more help with talking to other people.

“Okay Natalie, can you say ‘heart’?”

“…ha…hat!”

“No, heart.”

“HAT!”

“Ugh, I can’t take much more of this. Mommy needs a nap.”

“Hat?”

“No, Natalie, nap.”

“Hat!”

“…let’s try this again later.”

Callie needed a nap because she was up all night giving birth to Manfred, and her already fragile sanity was starting to crumble.

“Now how did that old nursery rhyme go? …Beans, beans, the musical fruit….yeah, that must be it!”

I may have explained in previous updates that Griselda has been keeping a low profile because she’s trying to finish writing 25 novels. Being chained to her computer or her grandchildren often makes her Stir-Crazy, so she gets to go jogging to get rid of that pesky negative moodlet.

I would send Grissy to the library to write, but given her penchant for fighting and heartfarting random people, keeping her at home is obviously the safer option.

As you can see, she has been very busy! Not all of them are smut novels, either. I eventually ran out of silly book titles, so I used some of the default titles, which are surprisingly good.

This opportunity really made me laugh when it popped up. This is exactly the kind of thing Frankie would care about for some reason.

(I rejected it, mostly because my Scatterday save file started refusing to load World Adventures locations for a while, and I wasn’t in the mood to figure out why that happened.)

Bizarre Frankie requests aside, Angelo is happily puttering along. He’s still working on maxing his Cooking skill, and he can cook almost everyone’s favourite foods. Today he chose to make PB&Js for Heimrich.

Manfred also gets an Imaginary Friend! I don’t know why this generation is all about them, especially since Callie and her sisters didn’t get them.

“Hmmm…Mommy and Daddy won’t know what hit them! The shower will…oh…it’s too high up. Ugh, this is too hard! I should have watched TV instead…”

Another generation of prank wars begins. -_-

Callie and Heimrich were blissfully unaware of their shower being (sort of) defaced.

“How are you feeling, Sweetheart? Did you have a good swim?”

“I’m feeling fine! That swim perked me up!”

“That’s good to hear. You know…you do smell a bit like chlorine…and you probably shouldn’t keep that wet swimsuit on for too long…”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

Ah. Of course.

…there may have been a lullaby too. 😉

Mitchell moved into his own room, since he is now a child and too old for the nursery. He got his own costume chest, and immediately took a liking to the dinosaur costumes.

“GROAR!”

He wore it for most of the day, much to everyone’s amusement.

“Thank you for joining me for dinner, Mr. Dinosaur! I didn’t know that dinosaurs liked grilled salmon.”

“ROAR! We do. It’s very delicious Gran-, I mean, Mr. Scatterday!”

“Why thank you, Mr. Dinosaur! Say, after dinner, do you think you can help me take out the garbage? Since you’re a dinosaur, you must be big and strong, right?”

“ROWARRR! Dinosaurs don’t take out the garbage!”

Mitchell – excuse me, Mr. Dinosaur – wasn’t the only loud Scatterday child – or dinosaur, rather – in the house. With three kids, someone is always yelling about something.

“WAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

“Ew! He stinks! Callie! Do something about this!”

I would make fun of Heimrich’s unpleasant face, but I’d probably make the same face near a stinky baby.

Callie was in the middle of teaching Natalie to walk, hence the lack of diaper changes.

“Good job, Natalie! You’re getting to be such a big girl!”

“Hee hee yay!”

“Ugh….now that you’re a big girl, get Mommy a bucket and bed, would you?”

Oh ho ho, looks like another sibling may be on the way!

It also looks like Natalie finished learning to walk right on time!

Mitchell still sneaks into the nursery now and then to play with the dollhouse, another of his favourite toys.

“‘YOU’RE LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH!’ ‘BUZZ OFF, HUH!’ ‘BUZZ OFF!’ ‘I SAID BUZZ OFF, KID!’”

Natalie mastered walking and talking, but time was running out for her to master the potty. She squeezed it in before aging up, though.

“Oh, my sweet little Natalie is potty trained now! I just can’t believe it! You’re being dragged into adulthood by the evil yeti!”

Uh…okay?

“Don’t worry, Natalie, I’ll keep you safe from yetis for a while longer!”

Aww! Callie always knows when to squeeze in a last hug with her little ones.

Callie has been enjoying a bit of downtime, since she’s still on maternity leave from having Manfred, and she hasn’t received any Celebrity opportunities recently. She still gets plenty of calls from her famous friends, though.

“Sugar! It’s been far too long! What have you been up to? Uh huh…uh huh….Well, Heimrich and I haven’t been to bed lately….but let me tell you about this amazing thing he did in the shower!”

I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation to have while holding one’s toddler daughter.

I did remember to have Callie shove a bunch of watermelons down her gullet this time! A sparess better be on the way this time.

“Oh yeah! That’s the stuff!”

Callie always looks so satisfied while eating. I love the faces she pulls!

She managed to snarf them down just before popping into her maternity clothes. Believe it or not, there is a little bump down there, but Callie is so tiny that it can be hard to notice.

Sadly, watermelons don’t help with this crap. YOU ALREADY HAVE TWO BOYS, CALLIE.

Calle’s first act as an officially pregnant lady is to go jogging, because she very conveniently got a working out Celebrity opportunity just after she popped, and she is no longer allowed to use weight machines or the treadmill. Enjoy this lovely shot of the legacy house, sans roof, because I am a doofus and forgot to put it up before taking the picture.

Sadly, Callie missed Natalie’s birthday. I also forgot to get her a cake, yet again.

Here is child Natalie, pre-makeover. She rolled Clumsy for her new trait.

Here she is in her new outfit, with bonus Griselda in her underpants. Natalie strikes me a shorts-wearing kid, much more likely to set foot outdoors than her older brother. I think she’s adorable! As you can see, since a couple of folks commented on Natalie’s face last time, Heimrich’s features are a bit softened on a child. I still thought she was adorable as a toddler, though. 😦

Like Mitchell, Natalie also gets her own room now that she’s a child. Her room is in the basement – it’s the one Callie painted and napped in right before Manfred was born. It’s also quite purple, as it’s her favourite colour, and it has room for a double bed if she becomes the heiress.

Natalie also gravitated towards the costume chest, though she favours the purple astronaut costume over the green dinosaur, because purple.

“Aww yeah! Got to start exploring some planets!”

Some things never change. :’)

Being an astronaut does work up an appetite, and thankfully Angelo was able to whip up some cheesy mac for Natalie. It is her favourite food, and you can’t get good cheesy mac in space.

Callie has high hopes for little Natalie! I can’t remember if she ever rolled this for Mitchell.

Of course, she also rolled this, very conveniently forgetting how much loft and bunk beds suck, despite using one for her entire childhood and teen years.

…I can’t tell if this is a rumour or not. It could be very real.

Oh sure, now you feel shame for your actions, Grissy! That’s never happened before.

She might be fiendishly delighted at her own public disgrace. It could also be because Manfred crapped himself. I can never tell with Griselda.

Speaking of Manfred, he’s due to become a toddler today!

Natalie quickly realized that one advantage of having her own room was more space for playing with her Imaginary Friend, Puzzle.

“Don’t you like our new room, Puzzle? We can play astronauts and pillow fight and tag and…”

Callie’s jog wasn’t enough to complete her Celebrity exercise opportunity. Naturally, this means that she needed to swim a few laps. In her maternity formalwear. As one usually does.

Callie also had to hit the town to promote The Prosper Room. The management apparently decided to make the lounge less exclusive, but the public hadn’t received the message.

Of course Callie swanned in, like she owned the place.

“This club can’t even handle me right now!”

“Ah, juice and pregnancy! Is there any better combination?”

“Ma’am, should you be drinking that in your condition?”

“It’s just juice though. Right?”

Griselda’s writing career continued unabated. She managed to pull off writing the elusive Vaudeville novel!

Natalie and Puzzle’s relationship managed to reach a new level. I foresee many shenanigans happening.

It’s also time to see what Manfred looks like, because it’s his birthday!

Oh my! He’s a clone of Callie, with Heimrich’s eye colour, but he’s so adorable (and he’s not taking over the family) that I don’t even care!

Here he is, post-makeover. I don’t think he’ll be able to fit his entire fist in his mouth, but that may come with time.

Even with little ones everywhere, Callie and Angelo still managed to squeeze in a few hours of TV.

“Dad, do you ever think that icing a cake would be easier if it were like painting a picture?”

“….wow. I’ve never thought of it that way! My mind is blown.”

“But Callie, is it more like painting, or taking out the garbage?”

“Sometimes I think we’re all a little too obsessed with taking out the trash.”

In case you were worrying about Angelo and Griselda getting too old, here are their age bars. I did bump up my elder age span just so they’d be able to bond with their grandchildren, so these two will be around for at least two or three more updates. 🙂

Holy cats! Everyone is aging up in this chapter! I can’t believe Mitchell is going to be a teenager!

I’m really pleased with how Heimrich’s come around to fatherhood. He may not be great with wee babies, but he’s pretty good with his kids once they become toddlers. He even rolled the wish to teach Manfred to walk!

“Good job, little buddy! You’ll be running around in no time!”

He can only do so much parenting at one time, though, but he helps out around the house in other ways. Now that Angelo is getting on in age, Heimie helps out with more of the household handiwork, like fixing the dishwasher that constantly breaks.

“I can’t believe Natalie put her dolls in here…’Daddy, it wasn’t me! It was Puzzle!’ That’s no excuse, Puzzle is just a toy!”

Oddly, Heimrich wants nothing to do with potty training this time around, so Callie gets stuck with the dirty work.

“Okay, Manny, you can do it! Go ahead, now!”

Callie has also been working on her teaching kids to talk technique,hoping to have fewer difficulties with Manfred.

“Maybe we should start slow, Manny. Can you say ‘cat’?”

“…hat?”

“Oh crud. Not again…”

It also appears that Evil Delicia’s reign of terror is over! This handsome man maid took over, and I now expect both Grissy and Callie to constantly heartfart him.

Well, Griselda won’t be heartfarting the new maid any time soon, as she’s off to court to sue the Bridgeport tabloids for libel.

“Hey, Grissy! Gonna get arrested again?!”

“Piss off, peasant! It’s not…quite true…”

She didn’t win a lot of money, but it was more about the principle of the thing, though.

“Oooooh! Oh dear! Here we go again!”

Baby #4 is on the way!

Griselda made it home in time to care for the older children, and they had a lovely dinner of various leftovers.

“So guys, when the new baby gets here, should we take a lot of pictures of him or her?”

“I dunno Grandma, don’t you think that’s too hard? We can just watch TV with her instead…”

“I’ll take some pictures of her, Grandma! But first I need to eat my favourite cheesy mac! Puzzle will help, too.”

Heimrich had to meet Callie at the hospital as soon as he finished work, because he was busy earning yet another promotion!

He made it just in time to meet his second daughter, a lovely little baby named Hestia!

Hestia is named after one of the fire maidens from MST3K episode 416, Fire Maidens of Outer Space. Hestia lives on the 13th moon of Jupiter, which looks oddly like the English countryside, and she is rescued from a monster by a group of astronauts. She leads them to the settlement of “New Atlantis”, where she lives with her (hopefully adoptive) father and several other fire maidens. Hestia is almost sacrificed by the other fire maidens for meeting a man before an older fire maiden. Fire Maidens of Outer Space is a very silly example of cheesy 1950s sci-fi, and a very fun episode that features Crow’s evil spectre, Timmy. The full episode is on Youtube here.

Our little Hestia is an Excitable Genius, who loves Hip Hop, Goopy Carbonara, and the colour lilac. Her Zodiac sign is Virgo.

Callie missed ANOTHER birthday, but in her defense she was giving birth at the time. Mitchell is about to become a teenager, but not before one final dingusy child expression.

Brace yourselves….

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

He did not win the genetic lottery. Callie’s nose looks weird on guys.

His new trait is Overemotional.

Oh he is not a looker. He’d be a good spouse for an Uglacy, though!

His face won’t be winning any beauty contests, but despite being a Couch Potato, Mitchell is fucking ripped. I have a feeling this came from Heimrich. Heimrich’s gift to the legacy, it seems.

Before we finish off this update, here’s one piece of news from around Bridgeport:

Josie got promoted. That’s all.

Well, that’s it for this chapter of The Scatterday Matriarchy! Happy new year (2016!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!) and happy Simming to you all!