The Weird Stories of William Solomon: A Great Boolprop Olympic Challenge Part Three

 

Welcome back.  It's been a while since the last chapter, partly because I went several days between playing and uploading the first several images; that's the reason for some uncertainty in the captions.  My apologies in advance.

Tamara was noticeably pregnant by now.  I believe she wanted to read a pregnancy book, so she took a load off while preparing for the big day.

They finally bought a new stove with the money that had been coming in, one that wouldn't heat so unevenly.  After writing his eleventh book, William upgraded the stove so it wouldn't prompt a call to the fire department.  This was his fifth science fiction novel, so from here on out, he'd earn some more from each of those.

At last, the time arrived.  I tried to get William to take Tamara to take his wife to the hospital, but I think she got there ahead of him.

After what felt like a long wait, the baby finally came.  Although I don't plan to do the BOOLPROP FIFTEEN mini-challenge, the name scheme did make it easier to decide.  Upon looking a list of girl's names starting with "B," I found one I liked; I think I was swayed by those Ramona books by Beverly Cleary I read as a kid. 
Incidentally, I was happy to see that I'd apparently done well with the pregnancy.  I'd only done it once before in Sims 3, as a trial run with Claire Ursine, so I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I was a little disappointed that I had to randomize rather than pick Beatrice's traits as per the rules.  However, these are both nice, so it's not so bad.  We'll see if this was just a lucky break or the start of a trend.

Tamara's garden was thriving, although it was also taking up a lot of her time now that she'd expanded it.  She'd made it to level five, so she could plant more types of produce, including limes and watermelons, the latter of which she'd often eaten while pregnant (William had wanted a girl).
Because William had made it to level nine in writing, he could handle mysteries; his twelfth book turned out to be his most profitable one yet.  Please pardon my Spanish; I think I should have said "Los Nadadors" instead of "Los Nadandos." 

 

I apologize for the bad photo; getting the right angle was difficult.  Suffice to say that Beatrice's toddler birthday arrived, with Connor having come over to celebrate--not that anyone was paying attention after she blew out her candles.  Poor kid.

As it just so happened, William had a birthday right afterward. 
"Can we hurry this up?  The boss hasn't figured out how to clean a stinky toddler, and she won't stop fussing."

Here, have a cute picture.  I figured that since William's the author, he should be the one to read to his little girl as much as possible.

Now that the honeymoon was over, William could go back to work.  The practice he'd gotten in upgrading things around the house helped him get a promotion.  I hadn't noticed earlier, but his work day had gotten shorter--good news for a new dad.

Although Tamara shouldered the majority of the responsibility, both parents devoted time to taking care of Beatrice and teaching her new things, at the cost of getting fewer full nights' sleep.  Their hard work did start to pay off, though; Beatrice could now take care of at least one thing by herself.

Beatrice spent time playing by herself when her parents were busy, learning how to fit blocks in and play some simple melodies on the xylophone.  I don't know if playing with toys counts as "toddler skills" as per the challenge rules, but I'll try to max as many as possible.

William rolled the wish to work out for about three hours straight, so he jogged to the beach in hopes of finding some more gemstones.  The trip wasn't quite three hours away in itself, so he had to run back and forth for a while along the shoreline.  However, as he ran, this lovely message popped up.  He'd had the wish to max his athletic skill locked for a while, so this was super nice to see.

 

Beatrice was making excellent progress on her garden; she'd reached level seven in gardening and had unlocked rare and special seeds; she had even improved her potatoes to perfect quality. I decided it was time to tidy it up a bit and install a sprinkler so she wouldn't have to spend so much time watering every day.

 

Speaking of improved productivity, they finally got a dishwasher, which William upgraded and helped pay for with his thirteenth book.  I got the idea for the title from those B-movies in Calvin and Hobbes, like "Venusian Vampire Vixens."
"Hey, if you can have an alliterative occupation from one planet, why not from another?"

Tamara continued to work diligently with Beatrice, teaching her the second official toddler skill.

I should mention that I'm playing this on "Long" lifespan, although I shortened the baby through teenager phases to something between Long and Normal.  Beatrice will have more time than usual to learn all of her toddler skills; I hope that's OK.

Tamara invited her friend Blair over to hang out, while William finished up his fourteenth book, a drama novel this time.  Too bad Tamara was tired out and missed out on playing with her friend; I had forgotten that they can play in the sprinkler.
I got the idea for the book title thanks to a concert by Mat Kearney that I attended late one night last November.  I was so moved that I wrote a fan letter both to him and to the opening artist, Jon McLaughlin.  (I wholeheartedly recommend listening to Mat.)

Beatrice moved back to her pegbox puzzle from the xylophone, and it didn't take long to master it as well.  Although I don't have a picture, I bought her a blocks table after this, but it never seemed to build any skill.  I don't know yet if that's only useful for children, or if it builds the same skill as the pegbox and is redundant.

Tamara's garden had really taken off by now.  The special seeds she'd planted had started bearing fruit, and her produce quality was getting better all the time.  She got a phone call from the supermarket requesting twenty pieces of excellent product, opening up some unusual new plant types.  Ad you can see, she had some death flowers and a money tree in addition to the eggplant and cheeseplant that she's putting in the ground here.  After harvesting the death flowers, she had a couple of holes to fill in.  Still no life fruit, which is what I had really hoped for, but it's still good progress.

William helped some, but Tamara was the one who'd wanted to teach Beatrice to talk for quite some time, so she finally took care of that.  If I'm not mistaken, Beatrice now had all of her skills, including instrument and logic.  I don't think I read her all of the skill books, but I think those were optional.

William came home with a promotion to the eighth level of his job, and an even snazzier uniform.
"Daddy's working hard to pay for a room of  your own when you get bigger, little girl.  For now, though, I'm right here with you."

William had started writing another book, but had to stop to take care of Beatrice.  The interruption was worth it, though, for he had finally mastered another skill.
"Soon, you'll be big enough to read like this all on your own.  Maybe one day, you'll go to the library and pull out a book, and you'll notice partway through that my name's on it.  For now, though, look at this word; can you say "three?"

I suppose it's cheaty, but I built the neighborhood myself for two reasons:  First, to put the community lots close together in the center so it would be easy to go from one to another, and second, to take the guesswork out of where the spawners would be.  Because Tamara had not had any luck finding any life fruit seeds, it was time to go really far afield for them--first, to the falls, and second, to a hidden little pond, both of which were on the outskirts of town.  After hanging out with Connor at the hidden pond, she took the seeds home.  I'm crossing my fingers that these are the right ones.

Tamara had broken the shower, so William had to fix it; at least it would never break again after this. 
And yes, this was the progress photo for the fifteenth book.  There had been a delay between the last book and this one, mainly because William took a while to finish a couple of large paintings.  Finally, though, he had enough painting skill to write a children's novel.  Maybe it wasn't strictly necessary, but I did want him to write one of every kind.  It was initially going to be about Oscar the Grouch, but I got a better idea thanks to that story about the pink alligator from Persona 3.

And with that, it's time to close out another chapter.  They're getting close to finishing a couple of goals, so I'm looking forward to the next session.  Adios!

Points so far:
15 for having a birthday party (with cake) for Beatrice (and for William, but they were one right after the other)
20 for mastering two skills for William (athletic and writing)
Total:  35 points