Chris

This section of story is dedicated to the author's oldest boy: (named Chris) who turned 15 this year - they grow up all too quickly... to the younger audience in the forums: When you see your parents looking at you contemplatively with a glassy eyed look...now you know...they're seeing the passage of time...and the fact that the little ones that they held in their arms are now teenagers growing up in to young adulthood.

Nikkei Simmer: Well, we moved out of our place for a while...while the whole lot was razed to the ground and rebuilt for the second time. After all, with the comprehensive landscaping and building that we had to do on the property there was no way that we could live on a section of our lot so we bought another property and lived on that while the construction was taking place.

The construction had to be done within eight months as Heather was due in month nine and we needed to have a roof over our heads by then. Suffice it to say, it was done in seven months and we had two leisurely months to set our house in order. But it left us with §11,000 and that wasn't a fun situation to be in, let alone wonder how much of a bill we were going to get twice a week and whether or not we were going to be able to pay it. Needless to say, Heather was making some good money with her painting, far more than what I was making fishing and as much as carrying our child, she was carrying the house along with it too.

...so when I wasn't worrying about our bills, I was worrying about her condition and how much she had to do to keep our roof over our collective heads. Phil and Noel were stagnating in their positions and it seemed like their income was a trickle, as was mine, considering how much I had to fish to make a thousand simoleons.

But all too soon, we had something more to worry about: little Chris, our darling bundle of joy. He was a quiet little guy, rarely crying, but always with a ready grin on his face when he opened his eyes up from sleep and that toothless grin never failed hit right here in the chest. We wanted nothing more than to cocoon him from all of life's ills. But we knew all too well that it wasn't something that we could do or even if we did, it wouldn't benefit him as he needed to learn to walk his own path.

I tried to spend as much time as I could with him, whether it was cuddling him...or just being near him while I read through my fishing books trying to get an edge over those fish...and utilizing what baits I could to see if I could hook them at a much quicker rate than I was doing.

...and all too soon he turned into a little toddler with an insatiable curiosity for exploring the unlimited bounds of knowledge.

...and all I could do was look upon in wonderment as to how far he would go in his pursuit of it.