Chapter 5 : Slow Goings

Captain’s Log, Day 17

Yesterday Ruby and I tried for another baby, and she just found out this morning that we were successful. I am now hoping for a boy, I would like someone I can pass my legacy to when I leave. Ruby, on the other hand, does not care either way what gender the baby is. We are both really excited because this will be our fourth child. Ruby still really wants to raise five of them and I think we will have plenty of time to fulfill that dream because we are both pretty young.

Even though Leila is a child now, caring for the twins is still a handful.

I’m not sure why, but Maria seems to like crying about anything and everything. Nothing seems to be wrong with her, but she belts out the loudest tantrums. Maybe she just likes the sound of her own voice? A small part of me can’t wait for her to grow up, but I feel bad for feeling that way because I know that I should love her anyway because she is my daughter.

I tried to help out as much as I could, but soon enough I had to run to catch my carpool. I yelled over my shoulder for Leila to hurry up. Today was her first day of school and I could see her school bus waiting for her. I really don’t want her to be late for school on her first day, I hope that she does well and gets on the honor roll.

Ruby’s day was easier, but it was still busy. She split her time between the twins, continuing to teach them the toddler skills. Hilda is learning the skill of talking really quickly, which is nice because as soon as the girls finish learning, Ruby can have more time to her self and to care for herself. I worry that the stress of raising two toddlers is going to make her pregnancy worse and the baby will have a harder time in life if s/he doesn’t start off right.

In the afternoon Ruby was able to take care of the garden. When we planted the new seeds we did not know a couple of them. We’ll know what type of plants they are once they mature, but one of them seems to wither really quickly. Ruby wasn’t able to get out in time before the leaves turned brown, but a quick water turned things around. Hopefully we will not have any problems of plants dying on us because we don’t have time to care for them.

I received another promotion today from work. I’m starting to get pretty far in my field which is nice. I make a lot more money now and we’re slowly adding onto the house and improving what we already have. However, I do not like my new uniforms. I don’t understand why everyone has to dress according to their station, I much prefer the freedom of my old world.

I’m really proud of Leila because on her first day at school she already made a friend and was able to invite her to our house. Actually, I was told later that the girl wasn’t technically Leila’s friend (I guess that you have to raise a ‘relationship bar’ to a certain point to be friends?), but it was nice to see them playing with the ball that I was able to buy with my bonus. I hope that they become good friends, I think Leila will really need friends later on.

Ruby made sure that Leila did not forget about studying. She insisted on sitting down with her (I don’t know why they didn’t use the table), and helping Leila with her homework. It warmed my heart to watch the two of them work out the math problems. I think that because Ruby helped Leila the homework process was quicker, but I don’t know for certain.

As I was watching them, a strange sensation overtook me. I stared in horror as rainbow sparkles surrounded me. I didn’t know what was going on. I had seen them when Leila transformed, but why and how was I going to transform? Wasn’t I too young still to be an elder? I couldn’t control my body as I spun in a circle.

A flash of white light engulfed me and then everything around me began to fade out. I examined myself in fear of what changes might have been made. Luckily, I came out with only a few wrinkles here and there and everything else about me seemed to be the same.

Later, Ruby told me that I had just transitioned from a young adult to an adult. I guess that is a transformation even though not much changes other than it’ll be slightly harder for me to father children and I have wrinkles. I asked her why she hadn’t also transformed since we were the same age, but she said that because she was pregnant, she couldn’t transform. I guess if she did she’d lose the baby by some weird magic rule or something. Anyway, she won’t join me in adulthood until after she gives birth.

My fears that Leila would continue to avoid her younger sisters were relieved later tonight. She spent the evening playing peek-a-boo with Maria. I guess there isn’t much else she can do for fun because we still are on an extremely tight budget, but it was still nice to see her take an interest in her sister.

Ruby and I retired to our beds for the evening because we were both exhausted. A day of work and skill building really wipes me out. It’s odd because there is very little physical activity involved in my work, but I come back really tired. I asked Ruby about this and she said something about it being true for any job because there is a thing called metal exhaustion or something. I’m not sure I fully understood her explanation.

Captain’s Log, Day 18

All of our food seemed to spoil overnight. Ruby seems to think that if we had a better fridge it would keep the food longer, but we also have been practically living on a diet of cake slices because of the recent birthdays. It’s not too bad though. The only thing we had in there was some old mac and cheese. So Ruby cleaned out the fridge and got rid of all the old food. We still have a lot of cake from Leila’s birthday so I don’t think we are going to be needing to worry about that any time soon. Especially because the twins’ birthdays are coming up as well.

Ruby decided that she didn’t feel like having cake (due to her pregnancy hormones she was very specific about the food she wanted), so she went about making mac and cheese for breakfast. I don’t think this sounds very appetizing, but you will never find me arguing with a pregnant lady. I merely helped clean up the house because it was my day off.

After breakfast, Ruby went about taking care of the twins. She seems to have taking care of their needs down to an art. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any child getting everything they need so efficiently. We were surprisingly able to finish teaching them their toddler skills yesterday so today they were mainly left to do as they pleased.

There wasn’t very much to do today so I decided to continue working on my mechanical skill by upgrading the sink to be self cleaning. We’ve never had a problem with it breaking so I figured that making it unbreakable would be pretty pointless. I also went around the house cleaning and taking care of the plants.

When Leila came home from school today I say her down (she chose our bedroom floor), and helped her with her homework. It felt good to talk with her again and just hang out with her. I have a much closer relationship with her than I do with the twins, but that’s something that I’m surprisingly ok with and I don’t think Ruby minds either even though it’s fairly obvious that I favor her.

I think Hilda feels left out though. Today she played with the toy rocket ship that Leila used to near us instead of in the kitchen where the toy chest belonged. I have a feeling she was trying to get my attention. The poor girl is slightly ignored because I like Leila so much and Maria is just naturally friendly and gets attention easily.

Once the toddlers were put to bed for a nap, Ruby sat down to read a little. She really enjoys it even though at first it didn’t really seem like something she would enjoy doing. It doesn’t exactly fit her personality after all, but I guess you just have to adapt to the circumstances that you are presented with.

Meanwhile, I headed down to the river near our house to work on my fishing skill. I hadn’t worked on it at all and after my last promotion I was told that it was something I was going to need to develop. I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it because at first glance it looked like just a bunch of standing around doing nothing and I like to be active. However, I found it to be very calming and strangely fun. Maybe the setting helped because it was sunset, which was really pretty, and the river reminded me of my old home. I think I’m going to try and come here more often.

With no younger siblings to play with and her parents busy, Leila had nothing really to do so she decided to go back to the toy chest and play with some of her old toys. She still really likes the chest, but she told me that she really wishes we had a dollhouse instead. I promised her that as soon as we had the money, I would buy her one. I think that is she asked me for anything I would try and find a way to get it for her.

Eventually the toddlers were again awake and Ruby had to take care of them again. Hilda’s social was really low so Ruby spent some time talking and playing with her. We really do neglect Hilda. Even Leila prefers to play with Maria instead of Hilda when she plays with the girls.

Ruby was taking out some trash when she suddenly went into labor. This is her third time giving birth, but I don’t think that that made it any easier for her.

However, soon enough we were able to welcome our fourth (and luckily not fifth, I was worried that we would have twins again) daughter into the world. We decided to name her Nelly. Ruby put her to sleep before calling me to tell me about the birth. I immediately headed home to marvel at my newest daughter. She was so small, but at the same time so precious. Ruby said that she had a slightly rough time with the pregnancy so Nelly wasn’t able to develop her personality to the fullest, but still would turn out really well.

That night, Maria found the xylophone again. She hadn’t touched it in a long time, but gravitated towards it. I like to think that she was trying to welcome her little sister into the world. But more realistically she was just having fun and enjoys the sounds she can make.

Captain’s Log, Day 19

I’ve started to notice that Leila seems kind of somber and solemn a lot of the time. I don’t know why, usually she’s pretty friendly, but when she goes from place to place or thinks she’s alone, she’ll have a very serious face that looks almost sad or grumpy. I tried to get her to race me to the carpool/school bus, but she refused to go at a pace faster than her slow walk. I’m beginning to get worried about her, but there is nothing I can do right now. I guess I’ll just have to see how things work out as she grows older.

Ruby spent her day taking care of the twins and Nelly. Since the girls knew all the skills that they could her day was very mellow. When they were awake, Hilda and Maria would hang out in the kitchen where Ruby went around cleaning up and talking to them.

After work Ruby and I immediately decided to get started on making our family one person bigger. I still really want to have a son, so hopefully Ruby will get pregnant again and have a boy this time around. Ruby, on the other hand, just wants another child. She’s stopped caring about the genders.

While we were trying to make babies, Leila was left alone in the kitchen to do her homework. I think we may have been a little distracting, but luckily she is too young to know what all the noises meant. Today was the first day that she had to do her homework all by herself and she did a really good job. I think she’s probably the smartest kid in her class, she really takes after me in that regard.

Later that evening, it was time for the twins’ birthdays once again. It all happens so fast that is seemed like just yesterday Ruby was giving birth to them. Maria was helped to the cake first.

She grew up into a lovely young girl, but ran off to fix her hair and clothes before we were even able to bring Hilda to the cake.

Hilda was then brought to the cake and we celebrated her turning into a child without Maria.

However, as soon as Hilda was put down to turn into a child, the sparkles came for Ruby and she turned into an adult. She’s still a beautiful woman, but worries a little about wrinkles. It’s funny that she looks no different from only a little far way, but the moment you get close, she looks so much older. It was weird to see her transformation even though I had seen the girls grow older and experienced the same transformation myself. I guess it’s one thing for someone to grow up and another for someone to just grow a few wrinkles. I was a little weirded out by it.

As soon as Ruby settled down, Hilda took her turn at growing up. She turned out to be a very pretty girl.

Hilda decided to stick around to have dinner (consisting of cake of course) with the three of us before running off to get a make over. At the table Ruby commented to Leila that she was please with Leila for doing so well in school, and reminded Hilda that since they had become children, Hilda and Maria would be starting school tomorrow.

With only a baby in the house (no toddlers) again, Ruby was able to quickly take care of Nelly and go to bed for some much needed sleep.

Maria made a quick appearance to us to show us her new make over. She’s no longer wearing a panda suit for clothes, but decided to let her hair down a little and wear a dress instead.

Hilda chose a coat and pants instead and made her long hair into a braid to keep it out of the way.

That night all three girls were able to sleep peacefully in the new room that we just built for them. There was barely enough room to fit all three beds, but at least now the three girls aren’t going to have to share a room with either us or Nelly. I think that they really approved of this. The day after tomorrow is the beginning of the weekend so I’ll only have one more day of pay before a few days off. Hopefully I’ll be able to make enough to add on more to the house so that the girls can each have their own room.

Tonight, everyone settles down nicely and I know that things are going to start to look up now that I am making more money and our family is becoming more closely knit.