The Tanakas - Round 1

Starring:

Yuuna Tanaka, Elder Family Sim, LTW Marry Off 6 Children

Jiro Tanaka, Teen Romance Sim, LTW Become Hall of Famer

Kimi Tanaka, Teen Romance Sim, LTW Become Rock God

Mariko Tanaka, Teen Popularity Sim, LTW Become Media Magnate


Aki Tanaka, Toddler Popularity Sim, LTW Grow Up Well


Inari Tanaka, Toddler Family Sim, LTW Grow Up Well

~*~*~*~*~*~

Yuuna Tanaka looked at the redesign of her new house. She'd lived in Rosebud for years now, but her home had never been as enormous as it was now, with the new second floor and room for five additional people. Those five additional people were her five grandchildren, freshly orphaned and lost in the world, much like Yuuna felt at the moment. Truth be told, she was terrified about adopting her grandchildren to take care of them after the death of their parents...Yuuna's daughter and son-in-law. She was old, her bones were creaky, she didn't know how to take care of teenagers and toddlers anymore.

As the late summer rain poured down, she sobbed into her hands, wondering how she would ever survive, how she would ever take care of her grandchildren.

Raising children was difficult enough, but raising children who had suffered such a tragedy was more than she thought she might be able to handle. She had to try though. To do honor to her daughter's memory.

On the front lawn, unaware of her grandmother's heartbreak and anxiety, Mariko played with her little brother Aki, the last children of the recently deceased Mum and Dad Tanaka. The poor little guy seemed sad. "I know how you feel, little Aki. It will be okay," Mariko said, though she had no such confidence that would be the case.

Inside, Jiro cried, wishing more than anything that his mother was there. This was terrible. He loved his sobo Yuuna, but she wasn't his mother. Life would never be the same, he knew.

As the oldest sibling, Kimi tried to be brave, but even she couldn't help but cry for their poor, ruined family. How would they ever go on? The wound was still so fresh, she felt she could hardly go on.

They didn't have much time to mourn their loss, which was probably a good thing. Soon, the welcome wagon was there to welcome the new members of Yuuna's household. Shelby Barrett, Sarah McCarthy, and Leo Wilkie stopped by to say hello.

Yuuna wandered off to the nursery with Aki and Inari. She wasn't interested in socializing that much, and besides, she was trying to remember what she had to teach her daughter's toddlers, to make sure they grew up right. Potty training was one thing, she knew.

She was at least pleased to see Aki playing with his little activity table. It had been thirty years since Yuuna had raised a child, and she'd never had two at once. She'd only had one daughter, and no more.


A pretty girl named Ivy Copur happened to be walking by while the Tanaka grandchildren were being welcomed by their new neighbors. She looked cool, and Mariko immediately introduced herself. The girl's name was Ivy Copur, and Mariko definitely saw possibilities for a new friend.


Kimi didn't see the same potential, though. Ivy seemed stuck up. It just figured that was the type of girl her little sister Mari would go for. Mari always was a little snotty herself, Kimi thought, rolling her eyes.


Finally, all their guests left, and Yuuna was still in the nursery with the toddlers. "I'm starving," Mari whined, and reached into the cabinet to pull out some mac and cheese. "Be careful, Mari," Kimi warned as Mariko turned on the stove. "Oh, can it, I'm fine," Mari said, stirring the pot. But suddenly, flame licked up the side of the pot and caught the top of the range on fire. "OH MY GOD!" Mariko screamed, dancing helplessly in front of the fire. Kimi ran into the room and did the same. In the background, the fire alarm shrieked.



The firemen came and put out the fire, but not before Kimi and Mariko exhausted themselves freaking out at the fire. Yuuna came out looking dazed and realized she hadn't fed the teenagers and that they must be starving. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," she apologized, reaching for the phone and ordering some chinese delivery.


Thankfully, the toddlers were still in the nursery, happily playing with one another, oblivious to the fire.



Soon, it was bedtime for Aki and Inari, and Grandma Yuuna put them to sleep. She was positively exhausted herself, turning in immediately after the toddlers were breathing the heavy breaths of sleep.


Being right next door to the nursery soothed her mind that she would hear Aki and Inari when they awoke.


Mariko went upstairs and crawled into bed, dirty and exhausted and miserable. She cried into her pillow, but not for long, sleep mercifully overtaking her.


Kimi, numb after their first day, was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.


And Jiro collapsed into bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what would become of them before drifting into a dreamless, leaden sleep.


In the morning, Kimi was first up, and she could hear the toddlers cooing and talking in the nursery when she crept downstairs. Going in, she found them awake and decided to let her grandmother sleep a bit longer, giving them their morning bottles.



Something told her her grandmother wouldn't be able to handle the two active toddlers while she , Jiro, and Mariko were away at school, though, so she flipped through the phone book and found the number for a butler. He claimed he would clean, fix food, and help take care of the children. Kimi wasn't sure how much money her grandmother had, but she knew the old woman needed help, so she hired Charlie Raha and went off to school with Mari and Jiro, leaving an exhausted Yuuna still in bed and the toddlers in the care of their new butler.



Charlie was a terrible butler. He left food out without preparing it, ignored the toddlers, and pretty much only seemed good at cleaning. When Yuuna awoke to find him in her house, aside from being very shocked, she was displeased with what he was doing. What she needed more than anything was help with the toddlers, so she fired Charlie and called for a Nanny. Nanny Karen came an hour later to help.


When the teens got home from school, they found that things didn't seem to be very well organized in the house. Grandma Yuuna was napping, Karen Gast was watching TV, and the toddlers were smelly in their dirty diapers. Mariko scooped up Aki and took him to the bathroom to give him a bath.


She tried teaching him to speak, but he was so unhappy that he wasn't having any of it. Frustrated, Mariko gave up, got him a bottle, and went upstairs to try and focus on her homework.


Before she went upstairs, she caught sight of Inari through the nursery door and walked in. The nursery was a mess, old spoiled bottles of milk everywhere. "What's been going on here today?" Mari said to herself, disgusted, hungry, and exhausted, unable to deal with the utter disarray the house seemed to be in after only one day. She put Inari on the potty and then tucked her into bed, then went upstairs.

She started researching on the internet. There had to be a way out of this. Kimi and Jiro lounged on the floor behind her. "Guys, what do you think about..." she began, and they proceeded to talk in hushed tones for the next hour. By the end of the hour, they'd come to an understanding and an agreement. They would go off to college, where they could fend for themselves and where Yuuna wouldn't have to worry about them. While there, they would get jobs and send home some money for her so she could hire a nanny and a maid to help her with the toddlers.


Kimi swore that they were abandoning their grandmother after she'd been kind enough to take them in, but even she had to admit that Yuuna seemed almost dazed with that many people in the house. It would be the best thing, they all finally agreed.

So, even though they were still young, they applied to college and went off, with nothing but the orphaned sim grant behind them.






That night, after she woke up from a nap, Yuuna felt awful. She was hungry, depressed, and her body simply hurt. She was too exhausted to even mourn the fact that the teenagers had fled to college. Actually, she found herself feeling...confused. Had the teens left, or were they upstairs? No...they'd gone. Yuuna shook her head. She felt like she couldn't think straight but forced herself to focus. Aki tugged the hem of her nightgown. Right. He needed a bath. She carried Aki to the tub and carefully bathed him.


"Potty training," she mumbled to herself as she carried him into the filthy nursery and spotted the little training toilet. Setting him down gently, she waited while he went pee-pee in the potty. She cheered for him, then set him on the floor, not registering the danger of leaving spoiled milk lying in bottles on the floor.


Little Inari was out in the living room playing with a toy, but Yuuna scooped him up. "Have to learn how to use the potty," she announced determinedly, carrying Inari into the nursery.


While standing there, Yuuna felt her head spin, and she nearly passed out. "I must be more tired than I thought," she commented to herself, scooping up Inari when she was done on the potty and carrying the toddler to the bathtub. "Bath time," Yuuna muttered, eyes blurry from exhaustion.


She scrubbed Inari carefully, the heat of the bathwater making her even more tired. She wasn't even sure where Aki was, but her brain didn't process the fact that it may have been dangerous to leave a toddler alone.


Finally, Yuuna managed to dress Inari and just dial Karen Gast before trudging upstairs to use the restroom. "I'll just lie down a little after this to recuperate some of my strength," Yuuna thought.


Two hours later, she woke up with a strong pain in her head and back. She blinked, not recognizing where she was but cold and deeply unhappy. She'd apparently passed out on the bathroom floor. Groaning and with tears in her eyes, she crawled into her granddaughter Kimi's bedroom and pulled the covers over her head, falling into a death-like sleep.


She found she was too hungry to sleep, though, and went downstairs, seeing Karen Gast and therefore putting worry for her grandchildren out of her mind. "...could call..." she muttered, dialing the number for the chinese delivery. When it arrived, she barely had enough energy to eat it, but her growling stomach wouldn't shut up.


As soon as she scarfed the food down, she collapsed into her bed again, exhausted, while the toddlers were locked in their cribs. She awoke with a start a few hours later, not rested but with a certainty cutting through the fog in her mind that something important was about to happen. She wracked her brain, and finally it came to her. Aki and Inari! It was their birthday! They were about to become children.


She rushed into the nursery just in time to see Aki grow up into a child. But he hadn't learned any of his skills! He'd grown up terribly! Yuuna cried to see how her grandchild was in aspiration failure because of her.



Inari, too, hadn't learned any of her skills, and she miserably transitioned into a child after her brother. Both of the children were so depressed that they immediately went to bed, leaving Yuuna to mourn her failure as a grandmother and parent.

Aki Tanaka

Inari Tanaka

Yuuna was so depressed, she collapsed on the couch and stared blankly at the tv while the children were upstairs sleeping. How would she ever do it? The social worker would surely come and take them away, or she would die first. She didn't think she could do it. She felt her mind slipping and exhaustion making her a dangerous guardian for her grandchildren. Heartbroken and exhausted, she fell asleep on the couch.


She was still there when Inari and Aki woke up, so they decided they would simply entertain themselves.


Inari played with her new Easy-Bake Oven, attempting to make a muffin but burning it terribly. Still, she was hungry, and Grandma Yuuna was still asleep on the couch, so she ate it anyway. Aki played with blocks, building some kind of alien space station.


After she'd eaten her muffin, Inari joined her brother at their activity table, drawing a picure and talking to them. "Do you think Grandma Yuuna is okay?" Inari asked Aki. "I don't know, " he admitted. "Maybe we should just be quiet and let her sleep. She seems...like she isn't very happy. And like she's tired. And confused." Inari didn't say anything to this, just kept coloring a picture of her mom.


With Yuuna asleep, there was no one to tell Inari that she couldn't jump rope in the house, so she did. In a way, it was kind of fun not to have a lot of supervision, she admitted to herself.



When Yuuna finally awoke, she smelled rancid. Her first thought was that the toddlers were still in their cribs and finally starving, but then the events of the night before came back to her. The toddlers were children now. Very miserable children who grew up poorly. Yuuna sighed and went to the bathroom, drawing herself a bubble bath. As she soaked, she cried a bit, but she had to admit, at least she felt more rested. She gathered her strength. "I'm going to go out, eat something, maybe make something for the kids. I can do this."



She made the children some breakfast and ate a bit herself before they headed off on the school bus. For the first time since her daughter had died, Yuuna had the house to herself again. The quiet brought peace to her soul. She picked up her paintbrush and began to paint, calming herself further. She felt the fog around her mind begin to lift and made sure to take a nap before the children came home so that she wouldn't be overtired.

They came home that night and took a nap themselves, but then Aki hesitantly approached Yuuna when he awoke. "Grandma? Do you think you could help me with my homework?" He wasn't sure about asking her; she didn't always seem like she was...all there.



But tonight she seemed a little better, and Yuuna agreed to help him. In no time, his homework was done.



Inari was next. Grandma Yuuna seemed as though she were doing much better, and Inari too got her homework done in no time. Perhaps things might work out okay, after all. Yuuna herself felt a huge boost to her confidence after being able to help her grandchildren in this way. It was exactly what she needed.



The next day was Saturday, and Aki and Inari played cops and robbers, chasing one another around the living room.


In the next room, Grandma Yuuna had been fixing them some pancakes. When she called them in, Aki and Inari came running, and they all sat and had their first normal breakfast meal together. All of their spirits were lifted, and the children felt a little bit closer to their grandma. She wasn't that bad, they supposed. Just...old. And a little weird.

After breakfast, Yuuna decided she needed to learn about fire safety, so she could avoid an accident like the one Mariko had had their first day.


And then she and the children all watched The Yummy Channel for a while that evening before bed. Aki and Inari couldn't wait until they were old enough to actually try making some of the things they saw on the cooking channel.


Grandma Yuuna went to bed early, now always careful to get plenty of rest, and Aki and Inari stayed up a while yet reading about subjects that interested them. It seemed apparent they were very precocious youngsters.



The next morning was Sunday, and all three of the Tanakas felt their moods lifted. It was a beautiful fall day, and Grandma Yuuna felt so good, she actually played for a while outside with Aki and Inari.

Granted, she forgot to put on proper clothes first, but the children could see that she was slowly getting better. Maybe she would remember to dress right tomorrow.


As Grandma Yuuna tickled Inari, the little girl giggled madly. Perhaps Grandma Yuuna wasn't so bad after all.

And behind her old eyes, Yuuna sent up a silent prayer of thanks for these wonderful children who would help her learn how to raise them.


How will Jiro, Kimi, and Mari fare in university? Will Yuuna stop acting like a crazy old coot? Will Aki and Inari fare better in the household than their older siblings did? We'll see. Let's check up on Jiro, Kimi, and Mari at college...

~*~*~*~*~

Scoring:

Six new sims: 6 points

Net worth to be added to neighborhood total: $31,177



[[Author's Notes: Wow. The Tanaka house nearly killed me AND the sims in it. Yuuna simply could NOT keep up with five grandchildren, and no matter how much I tried to get the teens to help, they were miserable and unwilling/unable to help. Yuuna got exhausted extremely quickly, and Kimi tried to get a job to help support them, but she was in the red almost constantly after school, work, helping, then trying to do homework. The only thing I could think to do was send the teens all off to college just to get them the h#ll off the lot so Yuuna could maybe get some hired help, recover from near universal need failure, and then begin to raise the toddlers.

Aki and Inari really didn't learn ANY skills while toddlers, and they started off their lives as children in complete aspiration failure. Fortunately, they're pretty self-sufficient, and Yuuna was able to recuperate a bit and start acting like a real guardian by the end of the season. I really didn't want to send Jiro, Kimi, and Mari off to college that soon, but I think it was the right thing to do. Perhaps they can get started at school, and then next round, some other teenagers should be joining them. Sheesh. I can't wait to get to the simple Beaumont house after this!]]