The Coronation of Pepper Doodle

“This feels like an auspicious day…”

The day after Alder’s birthday was the day Cypress would become a child.

Everyone had woken up in a good mood. When Liliana dropped by to visit, she and Nathanael sat together in the courtyard and laughed and laughed. Of course, since Liliana is a goofball, everyone naturally feels that everything is naturally funnier when she’s around.

Tomas kept giggling while he fed Cypress her last bottle. She was so cute, and she kept making funny faces at him.

She’s captured his heart.

Alder, when he woke up, felt that he’d gained an extra trait upon entering elderhood. Suddenly, he felt a little bothered by all the books lying around, and dirty dishes that he could have overlooked the day before were getting on his nerves. Maybe I rolled the neat trait, he thought. Is there an elder trait?

He spent the morning picking up all the books scattered across the casitas and courtyard.

“I didn’t even know we owned One Red Shoe.”

He even went down to the basement, where they store all the paintings.

Now who would bring a book down here? He wondered. It’s not even light enough to read!

“This is a kid’s book… but that doesn’t mean a kid brought it down here. My sister will read anything!”

J.P. spent the morning knocking off the three simul-skills: Mental and Physical, while playing Arithmetic Attack, then Physical and Creative, while playing Keyboard Commander. This time, our super-skilling strategy worked perfectly, and he maxed those three skill with eleven days left of childhood. Once he completes his social butterfly aspiration, it should be a breeze for him to complete the other three.

“I’d really rather just play chess online all day.”

With the skills well in hand, J.P. made progress on his aspiration. He and his grandpa became best friends.

“Little bub, you’re the best best friend I can imagine ever having!”

To round out the requirement for making adult friends, Aunt Sugar invited J.P.’s grandmother, Allie, over.

“She’s your grandma because she’s your dad’s mom!” Sugar said.

“Wait,” said J.P. “My dad has a mom? How does that work? My dad’s all grown up. Isn’t my mom his mom? No, wait. That’s not right. You mean, when I grow up, if I have a kid, my mom will be my kid’s grandma? But my mom’s not getting older! How does that work? Can a grandma be a young mom lady who feels like moonlight?”

“You’ll figure it out, J.P. Keep working on it!”

After she made friends with her grandson, Allie figured it was time to head into the kitchen to meet her granddaughter.

She was laughing to herself about J.P.’s confusion over the requirements of being a grandmother.

“Like a bunch of hot air!” she chuckled to herself. “I don’t know what it is about today,” she continued, “but everything just feels so darn funny!”

Right then, the sparkles started popping up in the bassinet, tickling little Cypress who laughed and laughed.

Sparkle-tickles carry their own special magic.

Taken by surprise, we quickly rolled for the trait… Just at the last moment, I felt, from deep within my heart, the quietest little whisper of a hope of a wish rise up…

Look at that!

I wished… How many times over this past year have I wished for this one trait?

“Just guess! I dare you. I double-dare you.”

How many times have I stopped even wishing, just letting the traits roll as they may?

“Take a good look. What does it LOOK like I rolled? Hehehe!”

How many times have I thought, “A trait that begins with the letter G…” and ended up with genius, geek, glutton, gloomy, good.

“You’ll never in a million hexibatillion years even come close to guessing!”

This time I looked at the page once, looked twice, looked again.

We rolled… GOOFBALL!

“I knew this was a good luck day!”

“Well, pepper doodles!” Cypress said as she marched through the corridor. “It’s a brand new day! It’s a new day like the old day because for once and for final, we got the rightful heir in the rightful place with the rightful trait and it’s a right old…”

“Don’t worry, friends, monkeys, and potato-heads, I’ve got this covered!”

“… it’s a right old sack of hot air getting ready to whoopy cushion you just when you least expect it! Phbltttt!”

Folks, we have our gen 9 heir, and, in right old bookend fashion, she’s a beautiful goofball whose name starts with the letter C, just like her old fore-founder before her, Cedar Bough.

Cypress Bough, you are the girl to see us home!