1.7 Play Some Games

Jym tries to teach Toffee to sit on command. It's not going very well.

Spring arrives and the snow melts, filling Tilde with joy. She can now ride her bicycle around town with ease.

In her imagination it is not a bicycle, but actually her trusty steed, Barnabas.

Tilde whiles away hour after hour, happily exploring.

Already a talented artist, Glycerine sets her mind to picking up a secondary skill. Her parents might not have bought her this expensive keyboard if she hadn't already showed them her ability to stick to her passions.

Tilde enjoys rough and tumble activities, so when she rides by the sportsball park today, she stops to play with her friend Alejandro Ellada-Grubb. After she establishes dominance by besting him in three games, she's invited to eat picnic lunch with his very nice family. 

Other moms, she has noticed, are almost never like her mom.

Ignatius and Cinnamon become old withered elders, but their love still burns. 

Concerned for the health of her elderly parents, Glycerine begins taking on more chores around the house.

The triplets normally have very different ideas about what counts as "fun", but when it comes to their birthday, they are in agreement: they want to be at the 32-Bit Arcade.

Local boys, Falcon Bird and Martin Gosling.

The teens make nuisances of themselves while the Quill kids are just trying to play some games with classmate Sharon Martingale-Schreckengast.

"I have a crush on you, Jym, I hope you wait for me," Sharon giggles, as she swings her heart-covered pink cowboy boots around under the table.

Jym says nothing, but appears concerned.

One last shot of the kids before their age up.

Wham! They're teenagers now.

They brought some trendy clothes to change into, of course.

Glycerine is certain she looks fabulous.

Gylcerine is also certain she needs a boyfriend, so she immediately starts flirting with Myles Loveland.

"I'm now the cutest girl in school, and you're the cutest boy, so obviously we should go steady," she reasons.

"Getting a boyfriend is THAT easy?" Jym is astounded.

"What do you mean, easy?! I had to fight all this anxiety just to go up and talk to Myles!"

"But then you just said, like, you're pretty, I'm pretty, we should date?"

"And he said yes! Wait, do you think he wasn't serious? Do you think he was toying with my feelings? Making fun of me?"

"Umm... nooo?"

"Okay good because I don't want to be traumatized and humiliated this early in my high school career."

"Dating already?" Ignatius frowns, trying to decide if this is a potential threat to household harmony.

"Yes, it's best to start looking early! I'll only live for so long, and I don't want to die without finding true love and starting a family." Glycerine pauses, then gushes, "Myles is so amazing. He has an artistic soul, like me. And he's so sweet and nice. I thought I'd have to go through a lot of boyfriends to find the right fit, but Myles may be perfect already."

"Slow down now... you barely know this boy yet."

Glycerine's fingers dance across the keyboard. She's getting very good at it. "You don't approve? Do you think it's too early for me to date? You should have told me earlier if I'm not allowed to date yet..."

"I didn't say any of that. You just caught me off guard, Glee." He shouldn't be surprised by this development, of course. Throughout her childhood, Glycerine talked about her plans to have a family of her own someday, and those plans included a doting husband. Ignatius would make idle commentary about it, trying to teach Glycerine what sorts of personality traits to look for and what sorts of behaviors were red danger flags. Hopefully some of that stuck.

Would you take relationship advice from someone married to Cinnamon, though?

Sophie's daughters have also taken it upon themselves to find mates.

Toffee finds all the eligible bachelors at the summer festival grounds, as her mother suggested.

She thought this horse was just a really big dog from afar.

She is disappointed.

While Toffee gets friendly with the local dalmatian mixes, Coffee finds herself smitten by one of Imogen Pelly's fluffy poodles.

Jym and Tilde are just here to have fun. They probably shouldn't have left their dogs unsupervised.

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Etc.: I would NOT enjoy living in Appaloosa Plains. It appears to have no leash laws.

1.6 Jazzed for This

"Don't you dare reach for that leftover spaghetti," Ignatius warns. "I'm making crepes!"

Tilde pouts. Spaghetti is her favorite.

Seating in the kitchen/dining area became a nightmare. There just wasn't enough space. Cinnamon's solution is to have a "kiddy table", complete with chairs painted with dog and lion and duck faces, for the triplets while she and her husband eat at a small corner table.

Winter is here yet again. The big fluffy dogs seem to enjoy it.

Cinnamon jars up the last of this year's main harvest, sighing at her dormant garden outside.

The indoor plants continue to produce at a good rate. Jym is the only one of Cinnamon's children to express an interest in helping her with the garden. She teaches him what to do, and listens to him babble about his stupid elementary school problems while they work.

"I was one of three kids too, you know," she says one day.

Jym perks up with interest. "Really?"

"Yep. It sucked. I was the third, the late one. An accident, kind of like you."

Jym frowns. "Me?"

"Well, one of you's on purpose, the other two are accidents. I have no idea which is which."

"Oh..."

"Anyway. My sister and I didn't get along so well, but my brother was the best."

"Where are they now?"

"Pepper is still on the island, I'm sure, but Cori took off with his boyfriend to Bridgeport. I was mad at first, felt kind of left behind. But I couldn't blame him."

 Jym makes a concentrated effort to be the favorite...

...but his mother is consistently more impressed with Glycerine's art.

Tilde never gets any praise either, Jym notices, but at least she doesn't try.

Tilde has named her rocking horse "Sir Barnabas" and pets him and talks to him as if he's alive. One time she even tried to feed him oats.

Cinnamon doesn't think too highly of Tilde's intelligence.

Despite the thick snow, the kids are sent off to school the first Monday after their age-up. Their parents celebrate with a woohoo in the igloo Jym and Tilde constructed the prior night.

After that it's off to the Sweetapple Ridge Country Club, to celebrate their success in life in general. Ignatius is a five star chef, already popular among the Appaloosa Plains elite, and Cinnamon has made quite a name for herself among the area's many nectar connoisseurs.

Cinnamon might make a show of ordering her own brand if there were other people around to witness it, but with her audience being only the bartender, she asks for some other overpriced garbage instead. She can drink her own nectar at home any time she wants after all.

Cinnamon shows the dance floor who's boss, but with the club this empty, it's hardly any fun.

So they head for the sauna instead.

When the kids get home from their first day at school, Igs takes them fishing. Tilde has been jazzed for this all week, but Glycerine says "ew" and refuses to participate.

"I made lots of friends, but they made fun o' me accent," Tilde complains.

Jym confirms her story. The triplets have all resolved to lose the Barnacle Bay accent as soon as they can, now that they have people to talk to who aren't their parents.

Just a nice pic of the house across the street. I didn't know it when I took the picture, but our second generation will move into this house in about three more updates.

 A pic of the laundry area in the current house.I just thought it was cute.

The hallway leading to Jym and Glycerine's bedrooms.

More dog tax. Cinnamon brushes Coffee while Toffee waits for her turn.





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Etc.: Coffee has the extra brown flecks on her back. Toffee has beige spots on her ears.