Chapter 12 - Time Flies By

Okay, it is about damn time for the twins to grow up, because this is just ridiculous.

Rhiannon has a private celebration with a cake with only Glynnis to wave noisemakers.

Tiara...

...and Athena.

The two promptly decide that the best way to celebrate is to get some of that sleep they couldn't get when they were younger.

As a sidenote, amusingly enough, they sleep in sync. They always flip over at the same time, and if one of them shifts and the other doesn't follow then the shifter will immediately flip back to the original position. Twins all the way.

"Oh my gosh, 'thena, I'm gonna DIE if we stay in this apartment any longer! C'mon, let's go play Tag!"

"Oh, but, I...umm...I'd rather read."

"Read?! Who reads?! Come oooooon! I wanna go to the park! There's always this creepy guy playing a guitar and it's super cool!"

Athena decides that she is doomed to a life of being decidedly uncool, then, if books are boring.

The family is actually remarkably unsocial. With Rhiannon home with maternity days to take care of Naomi and Glynnis coming home immediately after school to help raise her to be a proper human being, the only people that get much interaction outside of the family are Athena and Tiara. Even then, only Tiara is the social butterfly.

Tiara's also got a strange obsession with animals, specifically cats.

"Moooooom, can we pleeeeeaaaase get a kitten? Please! I'd take good care of it! I'd feed it and clean the litter box and pet it and play with it and everything!"

Rhiannon is decidedly unimpressed with the idea. She doesn't even think the apartments allow animals. The idea is promptly put to rest.

Her...association with Matthew Hamming (she can't bear to call it a relationship without getting all jittery and awkward) continues onward. There isn't an ounce of commitment. The two are unexclusive lovers, nothing more. And she likes it that way.

But she can no longer keep their trysts to the elevator. She arranges it for Glynnis to take the other three out to the park every once and a while, and only then does she sneak Matthew into her abode to enjoy him far more thoroughly.

She's now ever more conscious of just how small the apartment is, however. With a crib and two beds crammed into the living room as well as a double bed and a single bed in the bedroom, there's barely any room to move, much less live.

But it seems that there's not a single affordable place for her to move the family to in Bridgeport. There's a single house available, but its cost ranges in the hundreds of thousands of Simoleans.

The commitment-phobic part of her is rather delighted at the opportunity to move to another city if her family continues to grow like this.

And then she remembers Matthew.

Her mouse pointer lingers on the search engine link marked "Riverview housing" for long moments before she closes the window, skids backward in the chair, and abruptly stands up to make her way to work. She'll think about it later...when it doesn't make her feel suffocated to think about sticking around a single city just because she doesn't want to leave a man.

Naomi's birthday comes quickly, and everyone is there to celebrate loudly and boisterously.

She takes after Matthew in every way, with features that are incredibly severe and sharp but that she can only grow into in time. Just looking at her gives Rhiannon a strange yearning sense in the base of her stomach, and she regrets not inviting Matthew over to see her grow up.

The family bonds properly: with everyone on their cell phone at the same time. Their phone bill must be outrageous.

A birthday collision. Thanks, guys.

Finally, Pajama Day at school!

Naomi is particularly pleased with the fact that she doesn't even have to change out of her clothes for her first day of school.

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(srsly, tho, I have absolutely no idea how this happened, haha, but I had no idea how to end this filler chapter, so I thought "why not?!")

I finally scribbled down the traits, and they are as follows:

Glynnis: Good Sense of Humor, Brave, Loner, Hates the Outdoors.
Tiara: Virtuoso, Artistic, Cat Person
Athena: Shy, Genius, Bookworm
Naomi: Heavy Sleeper, Ambitious, Friendly