My Tiny Little Sims

(Before we start, please excuse the fact that Kara is wearing several different clothes throughout the birth. Such is Sim-Life )

Yet again, poor Kara squealed like a stuck piglet. She hurt all over, the pain intense…but after fifteen minutes of nonstop groaning, pushing and praying silently, a second baby was born. Thomas and Kara were the proud parents of twins - a boy and a girl.

"My God, she gorgeous," Kara crooned, tickling the baby’s perfect round tummy. "And we said ‘Dorothy Cindy’ for a girl, right? Edward and Dorothy Doter."

"Well…" Thomas hesitated. The sole reason for the early wedding date was so that his children would take his and his father’s surname. He didn’t think Dexter would be too pleased if the family business changed to "McGillan’s Motors" - it just didn’t sound as catchy. "Err…honey, d’you think we ought to say that the twins were born after the wedding? So they can have my name instead of yours?"

Kara paused. She looked at her baby daughter, mewing softly in her arms like a newborn kitten, and her heart melted into butter.

"Sure thing, Thomas."

And so, the wedding went ahead. Dexter, his cowboy hat put away (for once) in the wardrobe, had combed his hair specially. The twins were set upon the ground to watch the ceremony.

"In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, forever until death do us part, do I pledge myself unto you as your loyal, loving spouse. With this ring, I thee wed."

And the couple enjoyed their first kiss as Mr and Mrs Thomas Doter.

After a small family supper, the twins were put down in their cribs. They looked very similar, both with black hair and dreamy blue-green eyes.

Edward was slightly larger than his sister (being the dominant twin) and Dexter was all ready talking about making him head of the business one day. (This is him):

And Dorothy, all though small, was particularly feisty and kept her mother very busy (Here she is):

But nonetheless, Dexter Doter toasted his new daughter-in-law and twin grandchildren. He even produced his dusty old Olympus and took a photograph for the album:

Watching the young Doter couple kissing happily and contentedly, Dexter’s clever old mind turned to his grandchildren once more. His grandson, the child he had wanted for so long to assure the Doter family line, was sleeping serenely in his cot.

"This is it, Dexy, old boy," he muttered to himself, fingering his own old wedding band. "Time to put Plan B into action."

With the beautiful crescent moon shining over the house, giving unconcious blessing to the union of these two people, Dexter Doter’s crooked smile flashed in the darkness…the most sinister smile you ever saw.

"Really? Are you sure?"

Kara nodded, her cheeks colouring. She fiddled with the 24-carot diamond ring on her finger for about the hundredth time.

"Oh, Kara, honey! That’s great! I can’t believe it…they…they were both positive?"

"Yes."

"Brilliant! I’m going to call dad." And, eyes sparkling, Thomas hurried away. His own engagement ring glistened on his finger.

How many times had Kara relived that moment? How many times had she heard Thomas’ delighted voice; felt his warm hand rest on her stomach for the first time; seen the band that was soon to bind them glimmer in the sunlight? It was as if she was reliving a dream - but sometimes it felt like a nightmare. Wherever she turned, Thomas was at her side to help her - at church, in the supermarket, with her friends, even out clothes-shopping.

And now…now it was her wedding day. Her stomach bulged, tightening the folds of her hideous plaid red gown. She caressed it, feeling a dainty kick from inside her, and felt instantly more at ease with herself and her baby-to-be. The ceremony had been due to commence in a weeks’ time, but her early contractions had urged Thomas to rethink this and marry Kara before the birth.

The arch above her head let in tiny rays of light, and she welcomed them. She knew that, in a matter of hours, she would be both a wife and a mother.

As a short, sharp jab of pain echoed through her abdomen, Kara acknowledged that perhaps it wouldn’t be as long as that. She clutched her protruding belly and roared in agony as everything within her seemed to overwhelm her mind. The baby was coming.

"But it can’t happen now!" she thought desperately. "I’m not even married yet!"

She heard footsteps behind her, and both Thomas and Dexter appeared.

"What in tarnation is happening?" the latter demanded, clutching his weak chest.

"Oh my God!" cried Thomas, leaping up. "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!"

"A fat lot of help they are," Kara thought, before her mind lost focus on anything other than the heavy burden in front of her.

Hours later…

"You’d have thought he’d have grown tired of screaming," Kara thought grimly, listening to Thomas’ eightieth high pitched screech in the space of an hour. Her mind turning back to the task at hand…"Just one more push. Just…one…more…and…"

Squelch!

The next few minutes were mayhem. Tears rolled down Kara’s cheeks as she realised that her ordeal was over. Thomas took his firstborn and cleaned him, giving him a little diaper.

"It’s a boy," he stuttered to his wife. "What are we going to call him?"

Holding her baby boy for the first time, Kara smiled. "Edward Tenessee Doter. We all ready agreed on that, remember?"

Suddenly, another pain rippled through Kara, utterly spoiling the tranquil moment.

"Honey," she gasped, clutching Edward to her chest. "It’s happening again! I think we’re having twins!"

This is one of my favourite families, and also my first serious test at posting pictures. I’m hoping, nay, praying that it comes out all right!

Dexter. D. Doter was an old man now, with a short shock of white hair that grew down his strongly-chisselled features to form a neat, white beard. He was a businessman by nature, the proud owner of the ever-successful ‘Doter’s Motors’, a company that dealt in both first and secondhand cars and vehicles.

Dexter came from a cowboy background, having grown-up on an orange orchard where his father, grandfather and all his ancestors had lived and worked. His own parents had masterminded the takeover of the rival orange business ‘O.R.A.N.P.Y.T.S’ (Our Ranch And Name Puts Yours To Shame), and he inherited one of their greatest passions. This, thankfully, was not for harvesting fresh fruit - it was for selling products to unknowing and soft-in-the-head customers and it all started with selling lemonade and orange juice for a nickel a glass.

However, Dexter saw that the best kind of business was in the motor industry. At age twenty-two, he escaped his dull life and started his job as second-in-command at a garage in SimCity. He worked hard and was soon promoted to manager after marrying his boss’ daughter, Cindy. Some how or another, Dexter decided to sell cars instead of fix them and built up a great inheritance for the son his wife bore him in the winter of his thirty-third birthday.

Now, the owner an old man, ‘Doter’s Motors’ was unrivalled. People from all over the country flocked there to buy cars, be they tentative newbies buying for the first time or seasoned pros who knew a bargain when they saw one. Dexter’s car, a black mercedes of the sleekest variety, was greatly admired and he often sat in there when he needed to cheer himself up. The soft purr of the powerful engine and the soft plushness of the patent leather seats proved very soothing for the eccentric old man who had sold hundreds of them up to this very day. 

There was just one life that stood between Dexter’s business crashing and it surviving - and that was the life of Thomas Tenessee Doter, only child of Dexter and his deceased wife, Cindy.

Thomas had just graduated from University with his fiancee, Kara, in tow and was as different from his domineering father as peanut-butter to strawberry jam. For one thing, Thomas was shy, weak-willed and interested in history and the arts. He loved doing things with Kara, or just cooking, swimming, working out and spending time with his friends and family. He didn’t really care for selling cars, and all though he owned his own mercedes (a sparkling red one) he was usually dragged to work in his father’s.

Kara McGillan disliked her father-in-law. She had received Summa-Cum-Laude in her Literature Degree and was planning to publish many novels. All though she truly loved Thomas, she found it wearing to talk to him about anything. Whenever she kissed him, hugged him or was just talking it was a safe bet that her father-in-law would snoop around and interupt.

At five in the morning, Dexter and Thomas went down to open the business - or rather, Dexter dragged his son out of bed and forced him to drink cup after cup of coffee to wake him up. Sometimes, Kara went down with some lunch and a thermos-flask of coffee for her fiance, but Dexter’s alarm-bell brain alerted him to her presence and he promised that Thomas could eat lunch and chat later. Then he would take the coffee and disappear.

"I’m sorry, Kara," Thomas mumbled, stroking her hair fondly. "I know dad’s a bit annoying. He just wants me to do well, you know."

"I know, Thomas. It’s for the best I suppose," she lied through her teeth.

Little did Kara know, relations with her future father-in-law were about to get a whole lot worse in the next few years. And she felt the relationship was all ready at breaking point.