Generation 4: Heir Vote!

What's up?! I'm Henner, but I guess you knew that already. What you also know is that my father wants to make a decision on who should carry on the family traditions and stuff. I'm not sure I got it completely, but since you probably know all about this, maybe you should teach us! After all, it is one of us who will have that burden! Scarred for life! Okay, well, maybe I am a little dramatic sometimes. But it's only because my mind is the one of a true genius and therefore I know that something really big is coming up.And it's going to have a big effect on all of our lives.You can bet that I will work very hard if my dad chooses me. I have never been one to procrastinate, but worked as hard and as much as I possibly could. If you called me a workaholic, I wouldn't be mad about that, I guess. It's true.
What I want to do with my life, you ask? I'm not really sure about that. There is nothing in particular I would call my lifetime wish. Maybe I want to be a musician and be in a really awesome band. We would tour the entire country, have groupies and stuff! That would be really great. And since my family called me a virtuoso numerous times, music might be my destiny.

Oh Henner, stop babbling and let me introduce myself instead. No one knows how long my hair is going to stay this way and I want to look good on my picture! After all, those people out there can decide over our entire lives! Do you want to be ignored only because the sim before you can't stop talking? No? Well, neither do I! 

Sorry, I normally don't act like this. My parents always call me a very sweet and good kid. Usually I try to be friendly to eveyone around me, unless somebody is really mean to me. Like my sister, who sometimes drives me crazy. Huh. What a nice day outside! Have you noticed that the sun is shining? Maybe I should pack my bathing suit and drive to the pool. If I ask Dad, he might even drive me there. That could be a fun day! Oh wait, I was supposed to do something before. That's right, the interview! God, I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm just a little absent-minded, I guess. It's just that pretty things easily distract me. Like the sun, the flowers, birds outside... oh, hey, I want a bird. Maybe I will get one for my birthday! Uh..never mind. It was very nice to meet you! Although I don't really know what to do with my life, I know that I really want you guys in it :)
Love, Bella xxx

Hey guys. My dad made me come here to answer some stupid questions, and he promised that I would get some ice-cream if I did! That's a good thing, so go ahead and ask anything you wanna know. Well, not anything. Some stuff really is none of your business.

Oh, you think that was evil? Sorry, you'll have to deal with that. I'm not going to play nice, just so that you will vote for me. Not going to happen! I'm not like my sister Bella, not at all. She is the well-behaved little angel and I, Ivy, am pure evil. Muhahahaha. What did you just say? You didn't expect that from my looks? Well, looks aren't everything, I guess!

So let me get this straight. Although you might think that, I don't exercise. I hate sports, I hate running and I hate sweating. There is nothing better than a day on the couch in front of the TV! My dad totally agrees with me on that, by the way. We are both what you would call a couch potato. And when the bags of chips are empty, I don't stop watching TV to take them out to the trash. Are you kidding? My sister would do that, but I just throw it behind me. Somebody will take it out at some point, and I don't mind if there is a big mess around me. Being chaotic is just so damn comfortable.

What am I looking at? Who am I looking at? Are you real? And if you're real, what am I? Maybe I am just a little figure in somebody's imagination! That would mean that the existence of our kind would be unsure. We aren't real! We are not even here! But if we aren't, how come I can still talk to you? This is so weird. Let me just tell you some things about me, before I think about that question too much. Anyway, thanks for not interrupting me! My parents always do that; they call me insane. Just because my thoughts aren't exactly main-stream? I bet, no one in this family has ever thought about the realness of our world, but it's something so important! How can you possibly ignore that? THAT is insane!!

When I'm being stopped from thinking out loud, I express my thoughts in art. Oh yes, I am a very talented artist, both in paintings and in music. Maybe I will later join my older brother Henner when he starts a band!That would be great, wouldn't it? But then again, when he and I aren't real, that would mean that our band wouldn't be real. The music we bring out to the people wouldn't be real! What a terrible thought! But before I bore you some more with my apparently "insane" thoughts (again! Think about it! Who is insane here?), I will finish talking altogether. Have a nice day! And always remember Julia's, that's my name, words!

Here are your candidates for the heir vote! 

• We have amazingly pretty Henner, who might want to be a musician later, due to his talents. 
• Then there is sweet little Bella, who would do anything to please the people around her, as long as she doesn't forget about it. 
• Next to her is her twin sister Ivy, the exact opposite of what can be called nice. 
• And lastly there is Julia, who thinks about realness and other crazy stuff a lot.

Please do vote as soon as the vote is up (I will do that in a second!)
By the way: Grace's traits were Loner, Neurotic,Clumsy and Hydrophobic.

Generation 4: Part 16. Family Portrait

As I said, the more we thought about it, the more we knew that on some level we had lost our oldest daughter. For so long she had been reliable and caring, but now that she was experiencing first love, all of that seemed to have disappeared. That had to be one of the worst things you could possibly feel. Often I found myself crying or at least with tears sprung to my eyes, and Cassie didn’t feel very different.

Apparently, Grace’s siblings weren’t so fond of her new self, either. Even Ivy, who always had seemed to love her the most, started playing tricks on her. Mean ones. This surely wasn’t funny anymore, but whenever I tried to talk to her about it, Ivy just said something like “Well, she deserved it, didn’t she?” and went away. She was probably right, although I can’t believe I was with her on that one.

Surprisingly the structure of our family changed quite a bit. Grace had been there for everyone, and everyone had gone to her first. Now that she was no longer available, the four children grew a lot closer. I know that things have changed ever since we moved into the new house, but this was another change. Maybe it was a way to cope with the new circumstances, but it seemed to be a really good one. They played together in the afternoon and helped each other out with their homework. Although they weren’t in the same class – Henner was two grades above the twins, and Julia was one below them – they formed a little study group that met in the living room four times a week. One of us made them cookies, which was the only way we were allowed to support them in. I was so proud of them! Unfortunately it made my decision harder when it came to the choice of the heir for the next generation! Cassie and I grew older every day, and I had already made my lifetime wish quite some time ago. Somebody new should take over, but who could it possibly be?

I spent a lot of time thinking about this, since it was a very serious matter and something that shouldn’t be decided too quickly. Grace was not an option for me, that was for sure. But what about the other ones?

Before I could make a final decision, something important was about to happen: Henner had finished elementary school a few days ago and was now about to grow up! Unbelievable how quickly time had passed. I very well remembered his first steps and the first word he ever said to me. And now there he was, holding a very good report with a recommendation for one of the best high schools in town. We couldn’t be more proud of our little boy.

To be honest with you, I lied before. When I saw what he had turned into, I held my breath. He was an amazing boy who definitely was about to win the girls’ hearts in no time! Hopefully he wouldn’t break any of them.

While I watched him that same night, sitting at the piano and playing some chords, I once again thought about the choice I was about to make. Was it wise to pass the torch on to another man in the house? Or should I choose one of the girls, hoping they would be successful in life? This was a hard decision and I knew I couldn’t make it alone.

Author's notes: Phew, Generation 4 is basically done! Finally I caught up with all the pictures I made and here we are now! For obvious reasons, Grace is no longer available as heir. She started behaving really mean and unreasonable, and as I found her trait combination boring anyway, she's out. Leaves me with four possible heirs: Henner, Bella, Ivy and Julia. Those four will be up for an heir vote, BUT! I want to you to know that I am very much interested in your opinion, but since I somehow have a favourite and some thoughts on my own, the heir might not necessarily be who you vote for. Nevertheless, please vote! :)

(By the way: I lovelovelove Henner as a teenager)

Generation 4: Part 15. Ten Reasons

Everybody seemed to deal with Flip’s death in another way. Cassie spent a lot of time on our brand-new piano, which was a little odd, since she had barely played any instrument before. Apparently she had now discovered that emotions could be communicated through melodies and songs really well. I loved spending my free time sitting on the couch, listening to her. Every now and then I recognized a piece of a song I heard before, which she then turned into something new, unfamiliar. Wow, I had never realized how musical my wife was!

What I did realize was that my children were suffering, too. More than one time I heard one of them sobbing in their rooms, but by the time I got there, they had wiped the tears from their faces and pretended that nothing happened. They wanted to be grown-ups about this, which shocked me a little. After all, four out of five children were still kids and therefore allowed to cry, weren’t they? I’m not saying that once you cross that age line, you have to pull yourself together, not at all. All I mean is that I can understand teens trying to hide their emotions, but not kids. Henner was the only one who opened up to me at all. The two of us, the only men in the house, stuck together.

Yet he stayed in touch with his sisters a lot. Those five were a real unit by now and I’m sure nothing could rip them apart.

Grace was the only one left out a bit. Since she was the only teenager, she couldn’t participate in the children’s games that much (I’m not sure she wanted to, anyway). Instead she focused on her friends in high school a little more, especially her cousin Marissa Pinkerton. Those two had been friends for a long time now, which was nice to see. And even if there was a fight, it was resolved after a few days.

I guess to some extent it was because she was family as well, but Marissa felt like a sixth child to us sometimes. Our younger ones got along with her great, even asking her to read something to them when they wanted to go to bed. Sometimes Grace got annoyed about that and asked them to leave them alone, but the kids didn’t understand that. To them, Marissa was like an older sister as well.

Unfortunately, another teenager around couldn’t keep Ivy from doing whatever she wanted, even if it included skipping school. We had hoped that having Grace and Marissa around as role models would keep her from doing that, but it didn’t work out. More than one time the police brought her home in the middle of the day, after she had spent the day at the local pool or near the cinema, waiting for it to open.

When we tried to talk to Grace and Marissa about it, they told us to back off. Ivy was old enough to make her own decisions, they stated. I couldn’t believe them – Ivy was still a kid and apparently not able to take care of herself yet! But it seemed like those two were too busy with themselves to care about our family, something that really shocked me. Grace had always been the reliable one and now she started to push us away.

The day she went to prom, she didn’t even present herself to us, but just rushed past us instead. Was the pressure that we had put on her too much now? Did we ask for too much? All of a sudden it seemed like we didn’t know her anymore. That way it came as an even bigger surprise when we found out who she had been at prom with – Marissa! And not only as friends, but as a date. Something had happened in the last weeks, something that we had missed altogether. They had grown closer and at some point their friendship had turned into a romance. Before we knew it, people were talking all over town about the new teen couple they found making out everywhere.

Both Cassie and I were really sad that Grace didn’t tell us anything about it. Didn’t she want us in our lives anymore? That was something we thought about a lot. Our kids noticed that we weren’t doing as well as usual and tried to cheer us up. That was really sweet, but didn’t make up for the fact that we seemed to have lost our oldest daughter.

Author's Notes: I'm back! Sorry I didn't post anything in the last few weeks and even stopped commenting your blogs, but the last weeks were somewhat strange. There was a lot of stuff I had to deal with, leaving me with less energy for the computer and writing than I had thought. I'm still not quite fine again, but at least I came back. And I promise that I will comment on your last chapters the next days!

Well, what can I say. Ivy once again showed that she was a difficult character to deal with, just like Grace, who started her mood swings out of nowhere. And she actually went to prom with her cousin Marissa - who she now is going steady with. I wanted to ask my game what the heck it thought it was doing, but I figured it wouldn't answer me anyway. I'm not sure if you even can date family at all in Sims? If not, that will mean that Grace won't have another partner until I kick her out, because then they won't be able to interact romantically, but she still wouldn't want to break up. Sigh.

Chapter title: An amazing song I heard live last night, by a really great German/british band called Ben Galliers. My choir's last pianist is in it (and he is sooo gorgeous!), which is how I know the band. Last night there was a festival on campus where I saw them for the first time. (Check them out on Youtube - you should find them if you enter "Ben Galliers Ten Reasons". And look out for the pianist ;) ) 

This song is really great and I chose it for this chapter because there are some reasons to love kids like Grace or Ivy, but also some to "hate" them every now and then.

Generation 4: Part 14. Butterflies and Hurricanes

Now that everybody had made new friends, the house was never empty. At least one of our kids always brought somebody home from school and often they did their homework in a group of four or five people. The older ones helped the younger ones out, which was really cute. I’m sure they all learned a lot during those times!

Something I learned was that toddlers grow up really fast. In the last days I hadn’t paid any attention to Julia, our youngest, and without us knowing she aged to a child. There was just so much going on in the house that we missed it! Something that is absolutely unforgivable.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. Being forgotten over and over again apparently changed something in her. She started running around, talking to herself and even arguing with her. Also she sometimes seemed to be in a fight with somebody who was not there but made her hand act on its own! There was no better explanation – she had gone insane!

Our dog Flip was also still alive. Once in a while I saw him run through the house or in front of his food, but I didn’t interact with him much. Grace mostly took care of that and went out for a walk with him regularly – something he really needed but I couldn’t give him because of my age. I felt that my body was ready to give up, which was something terrible. And I definitely wanted to see more of my kids age up, so I decided to step back a little.

It was impressing to see how Ivy had changed. But then again, she had always had good relationships with her sisters and her brother. Still it was nice to see her getting along well with them. If only she picked up some of the seriousness Henner showed about school…

With everything going better in the new house, Cassie decided to work on something she wanted to achieve so bad. Her writing career had practically been non-existent, especially since she didn’t like computers. I even bought her a notebook and a pencil in her favorite color, but she didn’t touch it once. Instead she started spending some time on the computer again and one night told me she was working on an autobiography.

We couldn’t really believe that there was time to do something that felt good for us, but there was. Grace hang out with Marissa, Henner was busy with school and the three other ones always found someone or something to play with. It seemed like all of a sudden we weren’t needed any longer.

See what I mean? Henner missed not one homework and soon was on the honor roll of his school. We were so proud of him!

Life was getting really good during our last days.

Something we didn’t like to watch was Grace befriending some guy she met at school. It was obvious that he was interested in her in a way we didn’t approve, since she was way too young for that! Her first romance was not supposed to happen before she graduated from high school!

Luckily she wasn’t interested in him in the same way. This way we could save some arguments with her and go to sleep without one ear staying awake and listening to what was going on out there at night.

It seemed like all of us could really calm down after all. Of course stuff happened all the time, but all in all we now were where we wanted to be. We had a happy, big family with five kids we could be proud of. Especially Henner made me so proud, since he turned out to be so much like me.

Well, you might call him my favorite. I know we were not supposed to have favorites, but I couldn’t help myself. He was everything to me.

Just when everything looked so good, something terrible happened. Flip had been walking slower and slower every day, but no one had expected him to die already. The Grim Reaper had other plans, which was heartbreaking for all of us. We were going to miss him so much, even though I hadn’t seen him much lately. After all, he had been our family dog!

 Author's Notes: Rest in Peace, Flip! :( He had been around forever and then he suddenly died, that made me very sad... But it's not like there was much time to mourn, because so much was going on! When writing the story, I feel like nothing happens and like I'm repeating myself over and over again, but some stuff still DOES happen. Like Julia's birthday. They didn't teach her all three skills and now she is insane. I have never played with an insane sim before, just read about some. So that should be interesting.

Chapter title: An amazing song by Muse, which I thought fitted nicely here. There are good things happening (butterflies), as well as bad ones (hurricanes).

Generation 4: Part 13. Hier kommt der Ärger

All of our kids were developing independence which made us so proud. Ivy had only been in school for a few days now and already stayed outside to study in the afternoon. Well, at least that is what she told us. Her grades weren’t really showing that she studied hard, but maybe her studies were just not that effective. For us she still was a responsible kid who learned how to take care of herself, but when she once yelled at us that she only stayed outside to avoid us as long as possible, everything changed at once. Never had we assumed that we were driving one of our kids away and we couldn’t possibly imagine how that could have happened! Whenever one of our kids had a problem, they could come to us and we then tried to solve it. Sure, sometimes when we were stressed out from a long day we would tell them to solve their problems on their own or to come back later, but who didn’t? And apart from that we were really good parents, that we were sure of. Cassie more than one time broke down in tears and I tried to convince her that it was in Ivy’s nature to hurt the people around her, that it really wasn’t our fault. She still believed that we were doing something wrong, but at least I managed to believe myself. She had an evil character and tried to harm us, not the other way round.

While Ivy spend most of her time outside our house (for whatever reasons), Bella took up painting really quick. She did her homework conscientiously and as soon as she was done, she ran outside to the easel and continued working on her pictures. We could tell she was not a natural, but the patience she showed while painting really impressed us. If something didn’t work out, she didn’t stop altogether, but erased what she had just done wrong and started again. This reminded me of my father, who had also been interested in painting. But in contrary to Bella, he had stopped for a couple of weeks whenever something hadn’t looked the way he had wanted it to. It was funny that some of our children had inherited my father’s hair while others had the same hobbies as him.

Grace, Henner and Bella were children we didn’t need to worry about. They did their homework on time, had reasonable friends and didn’t come home late for any reasons. Sure, Grace was alone a great amount of her time, but we had realized that it didn’t matter as long as she was happy. And she obviously was.

Knowing that our kids were doing well, I could really focus on my job and the last promotion I needed so bad. And what can I say – I got it! My boss told me that I had been working like crazy the last days and finally promoted, which meant that my lifetime wish – to reach a certain level in four careers – had been fulfilled! Now I could lean back and watch my children grow up, something I wanted so badly for a long time. A day after the promotion I called my boss and told him I’d quit. Every day was so precious now that I didn’t want to waste it in a stuffy building.

Something I realized pretty late was that we were the only ones Ivy was angry at. She got along great with her older siblings, especially with Bella and Henner. There was some kind of distance between her and Grace, but the other ones liked her a lot. Not knowing why she was acting like this was almost too much to take. But there was nothing we could do about this, since talking didn’t seem to work.

Before we could worry about this some more, it was Grace’s birthday! It was unbelievable that her childhood was already over and that she was aging into a (hopefully) responsible teenager. Was the household getting more organized now or did this mean total chaos and new moods we had to face daily?

Honestly, it didn’t matter to me as soon as I saw her as a teen for the first time. My little girl was absolutely beautiful! There was no way she could have mood swings or anything. She was just perfect.

Her birthday party in the garden was pretty successful – all of us sat together at one big table we had borrowed from a friend and talked for hours. Even Ivy stayed there the entire time and didn’t say anything nasty or disrespectful. We should have birthday parties more often!

Another thing that was great about having a teen in the house, besides her independence: she took care of the other kids as well! Julia had often been neglected by us, which we were really sorry about. But with all the trouble we were going through with Ivy, there was almost no time left for her. Grace cared about her a lot and often was there before us when Julia started crying. The two black-haired girls really had a deep relationship.

When Grace wasn’t busy taking care of her siblings, she kept the house clean. This was something I personally couldn’t understand (because I was absolutely sure that neither I nor my sister Freya had ever been that way), but of course it was nice to see. She kept explaining that she wouldn’t use the dishwasher, because she was afraid that it would flood the house. At first I thought she hated everything technical, but it turned out that she was just afraid of anything damaging the house at all. Sometimes she even seemed a little neurotic to us.

Despite her little flaw she was loved and respected by everybody in the family. I can’t stop talking about Ivy’s behavior, because it was such a big mystery to us – as soon as Grace had aged up, Ivy went to her to talk about things. Grace seemed like some kind of mother to her, which of course hurt Cassie really badly, but I was just glad she was talking to someone about problems instead of doing stupid things.

As I got more and more curious about how my sister was doing, I decided to go over to her house one day. I hadn’t seen her for ages and thought that it would be nice to see what she was up to. Unfortunately she wasn’t there; instead I met my niece Anna, who was about Grace’s age. She seemed really nice, although she kept asking me awkward questions about our financial situation. I guess, she wanted to find out if we could support her a little, since Freya was rather broke. But apart from that our talk went well and I promised to call more often. After all, this was family, too!

Family. A word for something so important, for the most important thing in the world. I was sad to see that Ivy kept ignoring this. Whatever we did or tried, it didn’t work.

And then something changed. I don’t know what it was, maybe that we moved into a new house. That’s right, the old house had just gotten too small for seven people and a dog, so we moved to a house with just one floor, but more rooms. [As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the entire house. I’ll try and remember to take one the next time I’m playing!] All of a sudden Ivy started opening up to us and talked. This was all we were asking for – our daughter talking to us. Of course she had some moody days, but all in all it got a lot better as soon as we had finished our move.

Like I said, everything got better. Grace found new friends in high school and was soon seen with Marissa Pinkerton, her cousin, in all her spare time. They did homework together and they gossiped about boys and girls from their classes. We were so glad to see Grace catching up with the other side of the family and –at the same time – making friends with people their age. For so long she had been on her own, it was time that she found really good friends. After all, we weren’t going to be around forever and it was time that somebody else took care of her.

Author's notes:  Yay, we're getting closer and closer to the point where I'm at! All the kids become more different every day. Bella is interested in painting and helping other people, Grace takes care of her siblings and meets with Marissa daily, Henner is working hard for school and Ivy mostly is nothing but trouble. It if weren't five sims, I would almost like to watch them all interact in the sims world. But I really can't do that ^_^

Chapter title: A German song by the (also German) musician Michy Reincke, the translation means "Here comes trouble". When I read the song title, I immediately thought of Ivy...

Generation 4: Part 12. Respect.

With five children in the house we had not one moment to ourselves. One of the three little ones was always crying or demanding attention otherwise, while Grace and Henner completely were on their own. I barely saw them during the day, also because I was at work most of the time. Cassie had quitted work some time ago, because we couldn’t handle the household with both of us being out all day. At first we were worried that I didn’t earn enough money for all of us, but that wasn’t necessary. We sure weren’t rich, but we were doing fine, at least when it came to the money. Often we would find ourselves sitting somewhere, just staring straight ahead of us. All this trouble was getting too much for us, but there was nothing we could do about that. We chose to have five children (well, more or less) and now we had to deal with that. Whenever Cassie told me she felt nothing but tired, I snapped at her that I felt the exact same way but that nobody would care about that, either. Later I was sorry for getting angry at her, but there was no energy to feel sorry for her. There was not even enough energy to manage a smile.

Nevertheless our life had to go on. Cassie tried hard to teach the twins everything they needed for life, which worked well with Bella. Walking and talking were really easy, while she had a few problems with her potty-training. But eventually she did fine, like always. I was really proud of my little girl.

As if five children were not enough, Henner decided to have a sleepover on one weekend. He begged us to let him have it and as soon as we agreed, he started calling all of his friends. Most of them we had never seen before, but apparently he knew them pretty well. It was one of those days where everything had gone wrong and I just wanted to go to bed early, but Henner never asked for anything else, so we decided to let him have some fun. He earned it. And after all, it was a nice weekend – all of the kids behaved really well and even cleaned the dishes they used!

Something we had completely forgotten that happened that weekend also – Cassie’s birthday! Of course she had known, but she didn’t want to be reminded of that. Her elder birthday meant no more children for us, something I was really happy about, as I still regretted having Julia. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little daughter, like all of them! But I simply couldn’t handle it any longer, which is why I also longed for Bella’s and Ivy’s birthday! Two more children meant concentrating on Julia the most.

Cassie celebrated her birthday by spending the entire evening in the hot tub, on her own. She left it to me to take care of all the kids inside and told me about having time for herself. I couldn’t believe it! I was stressed, too, but I didn’t just walk away from the misery. But then again, it was her birthday, so I probably was supposed to cut her some slack. Maybe I was just sad because she didn’t want to spend any time with me on her special night.

As the night progressed, all of the foreign children fell asleep and it was only me and the toddlers. Bella was busy with the doll house, so once again I tried to teach Ivy how to walk. This time she seemed really interested and we made good progress, although one time I almost squashed her when she pulled me over instead of standing up. But no one got hurt.

Later that night I found myself on bed with Cassie. She had returned from the hot tub, all relaxed, and we had a really good and long talk that had been necessary. It felt so good to speak about everything that was on my mind and to make up with her.

Soon it was time for the day that was supposed to change our life once more – the twins’ birthday! Bella and Ivy were aging up into school children. It was exciting to see them age, but at the same time it was a great relief. Only that it didn’t work out the way we thought it would, because only Bella aged up into a child. That night we found her walking into the wrong rooms over and over again, tripping over something or stopping to walk, wondering why she was heading there. It was cute to watch her being some kind of absent-minded.

The other kid who surprisingly aged up that night was our littlest one, Julia! She turned out to have her grandfather’s hair, which was really great. Grace and her both had inherited his hair color, a great reminder of the old times. And although they had never met him, they were now connected to him somehow. [And yes, I like that hairstyle]

Julia was incredible. She seemed to sense that we were more than exhausted, so she played on her own most of the time. We actually couldn’t get her away from the toys to teach her things, because she was so busy all the time.

 During one of those evenings when I tried to gently pull her away from the dollhouse, I felt really strange. Everything was spinning around me and I could hardly keep my eyes open. The previous night had been really short and the day at work had been extremely hard. I was so close to getting the last promotion, after which I would have completed my lifetime wish. All that excitement led to me passing out right in front of my smallest daughter! Julia screamed when she saw me lying on the floor, which made Cassie come over to see what was going on. She was shocked to see me there, and immediately dragged me to bed, where she later told me that she had arranged some days off work for me. I apparently needed a break and she gave me the opportunity. I wasn’t too happy about it, since so much work had to be done and that meant waiting for the promotion even longer, but my health was also pretty important, I guess.

Finally Ivy’s birthday was there as well! [You see, I really, really like that hairstyle!] When we went to congratulate her, she slapped our hands away and told us to get lost. Wow, what was going on there? Tears sprung to Cassie’s eyes, being rejected by her own daughter. But Ivy just laughed at her, like some really evil person. She was quite the opposite of Bella, that was for sure!

That difference between her and her sister reflected in her entire behavior – at night Ivy often would sneak out of bed and play video games for hours. A few times we caught her and told her to go to bed again, but she didn’t really listen to us. This one was a real troublemaker!

Fortunately Julia was easier to handle than her older sister. She enjoyed time with us, but continued being on her own a lot. We were still not sure if this was a good thing, to be honest. But for now, it helped a lot.

Author's Notes: So yeah, I am just really motivated to write at the moment :) Julia really got Felipe's hair, which is awesome.  That was about the only GOOD thing that happened in this chapter - Ivy getting the evil trait was a bit of a shock. Apparently, I had forgotten about her potty-training and this how they reward me for that. She is the total opposite of her sister Bella, who is friendly AND good! 

According to my notes, there are four more chapters before a possible heir vote, but maybe I can put the pictures into three chapters, as well. I really want to find out who is going to be heir! Apparently, writing about the family does make me want to play more. That is a good sign!

Chapter title is a song by Aretha Franklin which I really love. And it fits since Ivy does not pay their parents any respect, AT ALL!