3.07 Headlines

Eric and Natalie continued their late night 'Workout and Family Meeting Routine'. Eric finished work at the same time that Natalie started, the only time they had together was between 8pm and 6am, most of which was used for sleep.

Natalie was concerned about all the extra time that Eric was working on his days off, she knew that it was important to Eric's career goals, but she wanted Eric to spend more time with the kids. Eric who was ethically and magically restrained from revealing details about his extra missions simply pointed to two articles in the local paper, and said that he would no longer be required to work so many 'volunteer hours' away from Elba.

The first article in the local paper had the headline,

'Sim Nation Leader Involved In Fae Nation - Simsylvania dispute.'

The second article that Eric had pointed to, had the headline,

'Sim Nation Sends Troops To Border Dispute After Security Breaches.'

 

The headlines did nothing to reassure Natalie.

Lil checked her watch, "Feeding frenzy o'clock", she announced to the children, and went to the kitchen

to prepare some bottles for the young ones.

 

 Lilli took the opportunity to enjoy a quick snuggle with Sophia,
before putting Sophia down on the floor with a bottle.

Lilli then turned to Lilly-Rose and after a quick snuggle, also handed her a bottle. It was at this time that Lil realized that she was one sprout short. Lil's gaze quickly jumped to the bedroom door, which was thankfully still closed. Her gaze then dived to the bathroom door, which was also closed. None of the children were tall enough to open either door, and while Johnathan could technically flutter high enough to reach, he had been in front of her since she entered the room.

Lil checked inside of the toy box and then the costume box, as she was checking under the rocking chair, Lil spotted a small pair of flashing eyes in the darkness under the cot. "C'mon out little monster, It's dinner time!", Lil chuckled.

Lilli waited for Nicholas to crawl out from under the cot, then she gave him a quick snuggle and handed him a bottle. She worked her way through the rest of the children, snuggling and bottling them as she went.

Christopher gave her a surprise when his bottle vanished almost immediately after it was handed to him. Christopher drew in a big breath ready to howl at the loss of his beloved bottle, when suddenly it reappeared again. He quickly put the end between his teeth and bit down hard on it, refusing to take his eyes off of it, or relent his grip, until the bottle was fully drained.

Natalie went to the local school to meet the children's teacher, they would be aging up in a few days and starting school. Generally when Natalie had a vision, it was like having a three hundred and sixty degree camera, and being able to guide that camera around the vision, with full remote control access and zoom features. When her gift manifested itself just outside the door to the classroom, it was more like she could read their thoughts. Neither the new school teacher or the old school principal looked like a Vampire, so Natalie doubted that either had a 'pusher' gift.

The teacher was excited to meet a new parent, and despite being straight out of teaching academy was looking forward to teaching. The principal however was annoyed that she had yet another supernatural parent here to tell her how special there child was, and how the principal needed to do things differently for said special child. Its not as if the school hadn't had werewolves, vampires, and fairies before!

Natalie wasn't in the mood to deal with the principal, so after the introductions, Nat cut to the chase. "I have no doubt you probably consider me one of those parents who will tell you how you are doing it all wrong, and that my children are special, blah, blah, blah, but my children are different, and they are special. Here is all you need to know.", she said, without taking her eyes off of the principal. Nat placed a printed copy of her compiled notes in front of each of the staff members, and departed.

Phylis, the second maid, hastened through her list of tasks. Ricardo, her boss, always managed to roster Phylis on at feeding times, its not that she didn't like kids, the munchkins in this house were all adorable, its just that mealtimes, they were so... like a bomb going off in a spaghetti factory!

Phylis went faster and faster trying to finish her tasks in time.

'Awwww, crap!', she thought.

Lilli found Angel in the basement tinkering with Marcus Nectar Machine. "Do you know that you are the first person to actually use that thing since it was delivered?", asked Lil. "Oh.", replied Angel. "I don't really know the first thing about nectar making, I used to know someone who did, and they showed me a trick with the filter in the back here that makes it taste better."

Lil went up to the fridge and grabbed a banana, a dozen different types of grape, and what ever other fruit she could find. Lil tossed in the first ten things from her food bag, and stripped off to her underwear. She washed her feet as per the guide book, and began dancing on the fruit.

Eventually her dancing feet partially liquefied the fruit cocktail enough that she could move on to the bottling stage. Lil thumbed through the nectar makers guide to find the right settings and set the machine to run overnight. The next morning when the machine had finished its run, she sampled her first creation.

Despite not following any recipe, and including ten different flavors, the outcome was a good nectar, breathtakingly balanced, astonishingly aromatic, and vibrant. Lil guessed her first bottle of nectar was worth maybe 35 simoleons. Lil slipped it into the nectar racks between an §1180 fifteen year old Cherimola Blan and a §700 sixteen year old Plum Nectar. Maybe in time the value (and the taste) might improve.

Marcus, Casey, Alicia, Bernadette, Natalie, Lilli, Eric, and Angel wrangled the children while Maggie and Jazz lined up the birthday cakes. Dylan held his baby boy Jerald in his arms. Dominic stood at the ready with fire extinguishers, Ricardo and Phylis stood at the ready with mops and buckets. Finally it was time for the great aging ceremony.  

Later that night, after the last of the cake had been devoured and the relatives had all gone home, Chris detoured to his parents bedroom to work out how to use the computer, it wasn't long before he found the games that he had seen his parents play sometimes. He was still playing Chess when his parents came in for sleep. 

Ceci was excited to find a whole new world called the basement, the primary storage room was full of kids toys and clothes and costumes and really awesome stuff! Not only that, but the basement also had windows into the swimming pool, she had never noticed them when she was in the pool, how cool was that!

Jennifer was wishing she had a pumpkin pie and one magically appeared in her hand, she joked that at least she didn't have to wait for it to be cooked.

John on the other hand, took great joy from cooking food the old fashioned way, and made some very nice muffins followed by a batch of cookies.

Sophia gave Skitty 'smoochies' at every opportunity, Lilli asked Sophia if she was a cat person. Sophia decided she wasn't really a cat or dog person, she just liked giving smoochies.

Lilly-Rose decided she would rather spend her time outdoors, breathing in the lovely fresh air, it was something that 'just felt right', as she put it.

Nick was just cute as a button! His parents new he was going to be a heartbreaker at school.

Natalie kissed each of her children in turn as they shuffled out to the bus for the first day of school, which, coincidentally was also the first excursion, which would see the kids spend most of the day at the Bistro, which would no doubt delight Jen and John, her two 'foodie' kids. Natalie got a call from Sandra Wick, the new teacher to advise her that one of her children had missed the bus, and therefore the excursion.

Natalie found Nathan playing with some bugs he had found at the side of the house, being a full moon last night he had changed into wolf form, and he wasn't sure how to change back, he had decided not to get on the bus at the last minute when Jen had made a joke about him looking like a life sized scareybear.

Nat talked Nathan through the method to transform back to human and Nathan had to go to school anyway. On the bright side, his 'Uncle' Elbert was also having his first day at school in the other classroom, and came home with Nathan to do homework and hang out after school.

Authors Notes:

8 birthdays at once! Whose bright idea was that ?!?!?!
Hopefully I was hinty enough to drop a clue for each child's third trait.