On Pancakes and Madmen: Juliette le bambin (Un)

Wolfgang is starting off good. "Mauvais conseils pour le pot" - bad counsel given for pottying... (snorts) he's not quite used to this whole dad thing, but then again, he's probably resenting me for making him do so much work. In Teresa's file he gets to get away with ignoring the kids and being mean to them.
I've not indulged in a single mean thing for him, and he doesn't seem to do it on autonomy either, cause he knows I'll kick his ass.

I had Wolfgang ask Lucie to bite him -- HERG I mean turn him into a vampire. Whatever kinky shit they do in the bedroom can stay there.

Lucie swapped into her dark form, which I find positively stunning and I'm amazed I've not convinced her to just stay in that form 24/7, and gave Wolfgang a very good, vampiric bite.

~~Why does something about these faces make me feel like this is just some kink between the two of them~~...

A one-sided one at that, lol, they both look nervous for him to be biting her.
Lucie's really the whole package though, so it's no wonder Wolfgang is so into her.

She spits out masterpieces every time she breathes.

She also cooks each meal for the babies and her fiance, who is still on a normal food diet.

She manages the babies as they potty... but this challenge isn't about Lucie, it's about Juliette, who is a very boring toddler right now.

We spend the first day heavily focused on potty training. Gotta keep those clean diaper club points!

She finishes the first round with Lucie before Lucie has to get ready for work as a painter.

Happy Juliette does her happy potty dance! Her poor brother is not so lucky.

Time for round two with daddy.

Little Juliette makes a slow crawl up the Potty Training skill.

Lucie tries to cheer up poor Tristan who had a potty accident, but she's called into work and bombs everyone's mood from "leaving them behind."

Literally, my poor Lucie left and all the tots hit the blue. Good luck, Wolfie! You got this. (maniacal laughter)

Silly Juliette doesn't seem to know how to be sad, though, so she eats her omelette mommy Lucie made for them with a timid smile instead.

Depart difficile, it's hard to be left behind!

Please imagine this like march of the penguins. I know I sure did. Onward, little soldiers!

She's back at being potty trained, netting Wolfgang a skill increase in Education (parenting), which meets his requirements for skill day.

Wolfgang: Great job sweetie!

Unfortunately, seems like those tacos hit Wolfgang right as he was in the middle of teaching Juliette her last round of potty training.
Where were you when the tacos hit?

No rest for the weary, I send her off on her adventure to seek her next skill... communication!

Ouf! Did you feel me breaking a sweat?
...
Cause I didn't.
Next!

Thinking (Competence) is more tedious, but thankfully Juliette's two big brothers are happy to stay still for her so she can watch them repeatedly.
Repeatedly.

Repeatedly.

Are you having fun yet? Gods I wonder if this challenge is too tedious/boring to really write about. Alas, here I am, still doing it anyways.

That's 3 skills down, two to go, and we're only on day 2!

CRAZILY ENOUGH Juliette is somehow tired after maxing three skills in one day, and she decides to conk out with her brothers. Such slackers!

They're cute slackers though, so Wolfgang is inclined to be cute with them and tuck them in autonomously.
Yeah, I see you, "Mechant" Wolfgang.

Since the tacos didn't hit hard enough, he went for some grilled cheese.

And decided wasn't feeling much of it, but finished it anyways because Sims don't believe in stopping eating after starting.

Lucie made it home from work, looking a little worn and dazed being away from her children for the first time since they were born.

She sold one of her paintings to fulfill a whim, and I woke the tots up so they could eat and potty before doing a real sleep.

Lucie maxed the Charisma skill, but that didn't count for her skill day, stupidly enough, so I had her go crank out a few gourmet meals.

That did the trick.

Juliette tried to make a break for it but Wolfgang snatched her up and forced a story down her throat before she fell asleep.

Those are the eyes of a child thinking "why? Wasn't three skills enough for one day?"
Non, Juliette. La réponse est no.

Lucie then poked out and tended to the garden because I told her to. If I didn't tell her to this place would've died eons ago.
In fact, it's barely not-dead because I'm bad about remembering it.

Bonne nuit kisses from mommy Lucie.
"Bonne nuit, mon petit garçon."

Wolfgang. Would. Not. Sleep.
Took me a solid 10 real life minutes to realize it was just the radio was on and he was too stupid to turn it off.
In TS3 they were smart enough to turn off a damn radio before trying to sleep. Dumbass.

The next day was bath day! Each toddler woke up, pottied themselves and got recruited for a bath before they'd eat breakfast and go about skilling. Each child got a bubble bath, which my hope was to give either the energized mood or the playful one.

Both boys got the happy mood, while Juliette got the lucky roll of playful.

Wolfgang looks like he's got war stories to share of bathing two toddlers while his wife went off to work and left him alone with triplets.
Suck it up, princess, you'll be fine!

Thomas was the first to make it down and work on his motor. Seeing as Juliette got the lucky roll of playful instead of energized she won't be doing motor today. I was going to have all three do it at once - see the slides - but I can't waste the chance for her to gain imagination with that boost!

Thomas got to be my test baby to figure out "which button makes the toddler go down the slide?"
Anything with Qu'est-ce que is a "what" question. So I quickly already knew that's "What's this?" So they could gain thinking, but it was one of the two G's.

Guess who guessed wrong the first go around? THIS GAL!

Juliette though made excellent progress on her imagination. I felt kind of bad that she was all alone, but that's the life of the wonder child.

Alright Thomas, let's try the other "g" word... and...

... well he made it down the slide.
So that's a plus.
Yes, I'm going to see this as a net-positive experience. Again! Again! Encore!

I found a neat trick to keep toddlers playful... it might come at the expense of your adults, but that's fine. Wolfgang and Lucie are going to sacrifice all for little Juliette!

When I noticed her "did a funny" moodlet was going down, I called up Lucie to play with her.

I had Juliette make silly faces at her mother and then tell her a joke, and her 4hr "I did a funny" moodlet refreshed back up from 2hrs to the max of 4hrs. I just watched that playful moodlet and kept up long enough to keep her playful for the whole day.

And dolls were her favorite thing!

Tristan has this cute little smirk he wears 99% of the time. I think it reflects his inner independent self.

Thomas, despite being clingy, doesn't really cling at all. I was genuinely surprised. Then again he's never without Tristan, so maybe that's enough for him?

I get dragged to watch Wolfgang do his full transformation...

.....into a hipster.

It's ok, Wolfgang, we already knew. It wasn't a secret. The world should know your true identity.

We've hit level 4 of imagination, but I can tell she'll be hard pressed to get that last level today. We still give it a shot.

So far here's her skills as proof that I've done what I say I have. Cause you know... documentation.

Poor Lucie is still stuck in Playfulness, just as I drag her back up to have Juliette tell her MORE jokes!

Juliette: BOO!
Lucie: Ah! Tellement mignon!

The boys were out all day working on their motor, so I dragged the potties down so they could hustle over and take care of business without having to haul ass up a flight of stairs or two.

Tristan, surprisingly, is the only one who hasn't yet maxed the Pot.

Meantime, what's Wolfgang been working on? Well he's been doing his vampire skills. His brother called and asked to come over, which I obliged, but Wolfgang had to stay on the computer 24/7 until he can step out into sunlight and be with his kiddos.

Poor Thomas, looks so nervous he does, but he maxed motor!

Lucas did us a favor and cleaned up the toilets for me, thanks mate!

Tristan came shortly behind Thomas at maxing movement.

Uncle Lucas gets to be silly with the boys while their sister is throwing a fit of sadness.

Time to force-feed her another book!

She ends day 3 with Imagination almost maxed, and three skill levels left for movement.

Finally Wolfgang can step outside and help with the garden... only it's night, lol, so he's safe to anyways, but now he could do it whenever.

I think the reason he was out there was because I sent Lucie out there. They're pretty cute together. I'm iffy about them as a pairing, they definitely don't strike me as my Caleb/Lettie does, but I do think it's nice that Wolfgang and she have something good right now.

I watch them like a hawk to make sure that's just crac-crac and not anything to do with bebes.

They deserve a break. I feel bad constantly keeping them moving for the triplet's sake and for their own skilling.

But of course that can't last long, and I send them back to what they were doing, which was painting and working on computer science/programming.

Wolfgang: You know Dominique, this code is just not working. It says it's not gonna work, then I run it again without changing anything and it works!
Dominique: *fish glubbing noises*
Wolfgang: I know, right?!
And Wolfgang has lost his sanity. He truly is on his way to becoming a programmer.

Thomas is one of the first ones awake in the morning.
... I'm assuming this is Thomas.
Those monster outfits were terrible ideas.
I KNEW it too. I kept telling myself I should give them all three different pajama sets, but I said "nooo, it's fine, I made them different colors! Surely that'll be enough."
No, self, it damn fucking wasn't. Try again.

Wolfgang's morose rears it's ugly head along with his eternal sadness, so Lucie gives him a pick-me-up by soul-sucking all those bad emotions out.
Gotta be in tip-top shape to take care of your three, oops toddlers you got from that one time you slept with a girl in high school and now you're stuck raising them and sacrificing your happiness and job and future to keep them happy and on the best track of life while your wife goes out and pursues a career and leaves you home alone with three grubby, needy children who-
Ahem, I'm not helping. Moving along.

Morning routines a go.

Seems my pep talk did wonders for Wolfgang's mood!

Yet he cheered himself up looking at the paintings his Lucie did. Yeah, you are a lucky dude to have her, you know.

Juliette corners Lucie before she leaves for work to tell her lots of jokes.

This makes her Playful (Joueuse!) so she can get that last SMIDGE of imagination she needs!

This is the menu I stare at every time I send him off to do something. Save for Pirater, which easily is the hacking portion, it's basically a crapshoot for me.
I mean I can tell what each is, but I don't remember which one makes the most money (or any money at all) so it resulted in me trying all of them at least once...