What is That?!

“What is that?” Mina said, staring at Paolo in confusion, but the Maxis-made sim was just as clueless. The … thing… on the floor just looked up at them and crinkled his eyes.

“WAHHHH!”

“We did just age Aubrey up, right?” The noise intensified. “Why is it doing that?” Although from the pained expression in his eyes, he didn’t know any more than she did.

“Shush, hush,” they tried to soothe it like they had when their baby was fussy but this creature would not be consoled. Arms failed and pudgy cheeks were stained with tears. In desperation, Mina Pigglewiggle did the unthinkable, she checked the portrait panel. Technically it could be considered cheating, but strange times called for strange measures.

“Throw Tantrum?” She frowned. “Tantrum?” She looked back at what had been a slumbering infant a mere moment before. Before the sparkles had appeared and right before they realized their darling Aubrey was not going to pop out of the bassinette and land at their feet with a smile and a chipper, “Hello mum, hello dad.”

She picked it up gingerly and it stopped crying.

This was no chipper child, this was a squat, giant infant who babbled incoherently, stank, and was currently raising a fuss over something and teetering unsteadily on tiny feet.

“I’ll check the forums,” Paolo said backing away quickly, “Perhaps it’s a bug, like that ‘demon baby’ thing from 2015.” Mina nodded too stunned to respond and Paolo beat a hasty retreat. Mina examined the sim.

She clicked on Aubrey’s portrait and checked his age. This was no bug, she was coming to realize, the portrait panel proved it.  “T-o-d-d-l-e-r,” she read with growing horror. This was planned; it was part of some terrible EA trick. They now had to do what every earlier game-version sim had had to do. Teach their son to talk, and read, and poop in the little boy potty.

She checked the catalog – sure enough, there were a plethora of child branded items and now toilets that didn’t flush available for sale. Toilets that had to be cleaned by hand. She shuddered and did what any sensible sim would do. Clicking on Aubrey she quickly sped through the pie menus, horror growing. It wasn’t there. There was no convenient ‘age up’ menu item. They were stuck with this small stinky creature.

We all are now.

---

I wrote the original story back in September on a particularly low day when I was desperate for toddlers. I had to tweak a few things to match what EA gave us – toddlers start with walking not crawling, and even after he threw a tantrum, I couldn’t get the parents to get a bad moodlet from it. I was certain there would be a tense modifier or something. It also ended with her aging the boy up with a sigh of relief as we weren’t ready back then for toddlers. I think we are now!