More Awesome Than You!

Well I just had the oddest thing happen. At 8.10am the nanny was still not there. A message popped up, "did I have a nanny scheduled as it wasn't good to leave the toddlers home alone". Yes, I said.

8.20 - no nanny. Got one of the teenagers to ring and order a nanny, 'just for now'. Everyone got in the vehicles and left, but not before another message popped up, saying the same thing as before.

Nanny finally arrived, hopped out of the car. Car drove off. Another nanny car arrived, bugger I thought, the scheduled nanny finally arrived. But no. The first nanny walked to the second nanny car, got in and DROVE OFF!

Leaving 2 toddlers on their own for the day. Luckily I have the no social worker hack and Inge's bottomless bottle.

EDIT: OMG How tragic, I'm spending my evening babysitting virtual toddlers. I need to get a life!

Oh my, that is too funny.  I don't mess with nannies anymore myself.  In fact, if both parents are working, I've found that leaving the toddlers alone is perfectly fine.  With Inge's bottle and the social worker hack as you mentioned, and JMP's baby controller, they will play happily skilling away until mommy and daddy come home.  Babies are fine too, in their cribs.  Usually by the time one of the parents get home it's time for a nap.  Of course, I don't recommend doing this with real toddlers! :D  It sure beats paying the nanny to do nothing, and I figure it's only for a few days.  Depending on schedules and off days, I might have the parent take a vacation day and teach the kids to talk or something.  I have heard so many of these nanny stories, it's bizarre.

My latest ploy is to move a graduate onto the lot and let them get some parenting practice!  Lilith loved doing it - she made two new friends!  she never even threw up a job want until the kids started school!  And she was far happier than she would have been back in the Pleasant household!

I tried moving a sim into a household once to help with the kids, but they couldn't do some things because they weren't "family."  Was Lilith related to these children?  Or did you edit family ties in SimPE?

No, at first Lilith could only feed them and put them in the crib, but once whe got friendlier with them (ie once the babies knew her) she could do everything, potty training, teaching to walk etc., and got the Family Kiss instruction, but when I checked in SimPE she was definitely unrelated to the kids, so obviously being an unofficial auntie works the same as a step-parent. 

"Well I just had the oddest thing happen. At 8.10am the nanny was still not there. A message popped up, "did I have a nanny scheduled as it wasn't good to leave the toddlers home alone". Yes, I said.

8.20 - no nanny. Got one of the teenagers to ring and order a nanny, 'just for now'. Everyone got in the vehicles and left, but not before another message popped up, saying the same thing as before." (witch)

May be you scheduled wrong the nanny? If one of the parents works 10AM to 4PM, and the other - from 9AM to 3PM - the 9AM parent has to call and schedule the nanny.

I don't have problem at all with schedulling the nannies, as long as I order the right sim to ask for schedule.

For instance: Dad was working from 10 to 2 (theorist), but mom worked from 8 to 1 (teacher), because I have made 2 babies one after another. The earlier-going-to-work sim has to order the schedule. If you gave the dad to schedule - the nanny will come only at 9.

Cancel the schedule, and give the right sim to order new schedule.

Thanks Gali, but the mum ordered the scheduled nanny and she starts at 8 so the nanny should have been there.

And yes, the toddlers were fine on their own, till I noticed one of them now had a blank want icon. So I exited without saving. Hopefully the corruption didn't stick. I didn't have testing cheats enabled either.

Interesting, so you reckon the 'training the baby stuff' is based on the strength of the relationship? Haven't seen that yet, I might get a townie to move in and babysit, see what happens.

Has to be the relationship thing, since once Lilith had fed the kids once, the next time she could play with them and everything!

It's nice, though, to use graduates, they can move in for a while with their friends and of course their 20,000 Simoleons helps a lot.  Then if they move into their own house, they get it back again, so they don't lose anything by it, and you can get them to drink some Elixir so they go back to 29days.

Oh, and you also get to find out which ones will do a good job of parenting!

I have had blank icons, but they seem to work themselves out.  When you satisfy one of their wants, it will usually refresh.  I think in that case it was due to the parents being off the lot, at least, when they are gone, it seems the toddlers will spin up wants for anyone to play or read or talk to them instead of a specific parent at those times.

When I did use the nanny, I would have the parent who went to work later order the nanny.  There is no sense in paying for the nanny an extra hour when one parent is still going to be there.  The other parent can dismiss her when s/he gets home.  It shouldn't cause the nanny to show up late or not at all.

Sims are neither good or bad parents.  They are as good or bad as you make them. :)  One sim is as good as another.  They may have varying personality points, but other than that, they are whatever we want them to be.  Especially with the right hacks. ;)

I habitually move in townies for child-care purposes. I use Inge's teleporter shrub, and I have never noticed any problems with interactions with the toddler. But then again, I wasn't exactly looking for problems either. Plus, the townies I move in all have prior good relationships with the parents, and I immediately set then to work on building relationships with the toddler.

Babies I have taken care off by one of the parents. I use the mom's leave, and dad's vacation time until they become toddlers. No nanny for me - ever. They are so seriously messed up, it just tends to feed my paranoia.

Edit: I also don't let them have kids until at least one of them is at the top of their career(s), and they have a sizeable nest-egg. So if worse comes to worse, I just have one of them quit the job.

I get your point, Rainbow, about the hacks and of course, we direct the sim families to do what we say, but I do disagree.  Some sims just are better parents than others.  My ISBI founder couple the dad is an excellent parent.  He autonomously will play, tickle, change feed and love on his babies.  His wife prefers to sit on the sofa and watch tv while her stinky, hungry screaming babies pull on her knees for attention.  Sure, I can tell her to change a diaper or feed a baby, but man, she never even responded to the baby advertising unless I told her to.  The dad would come running though.  She was a fambly sim, he's knowledge.

C

Yeah I agree with the poster above.  I have had very good sim parents and a few stinkers.  Doesn't matter what asp they are or how many nice points.  The Goths were the worst and wound up talking the dirt nap while their two adult sons and their wives raise their youngest daughter.

I have never seen a sim autonomously change a baby's diaper, unless the toddler asks them to.  When I first got the game, I would sit and let the stinky baby/toddler cry, just to see if they would change the diaper (I had the changing table), while the parents went and got bottles for the baby and put it to bed, got it out, fed it another bottle, snuggled and played with it, and even give it a bath and put the dirty diaper back on, apparently, because it still needed changing (!)  I couldn't understand this.  That's one reason I got the baby controller, because I don't have to micromanage every step of baby care while other family members all fight over who gets to feed the baby a bottle.  I figured that changing a diaper must not be autonomous for some reason, because I always had to instruct them to do it.  Before Uni, I could take control of a visiting sim and have them change a baby's diaper and put them in the crib, but Uni broke that.

Interestingly, Ask for diaper change is not available as a menu option like Ask for food and Ask for attention are, except in debug mode.  But I micromanage everything my sims do.  My sims can't take a pee without my blessing, LOL.

Rainbow, my ISBI family (mentioned above) does not have a baby controller.  The dad did autonomously change the diaper, but he did it in the middle of the bedroom and left the dirty diaper on the floor.  Now that's a whole 'nother complaint.  LOL.  How nasty!  But he did change the kid.

C

Was there a changing table available when he did that?  That is nasty.  That's why I always bought changing tables once I discovered them in the game.  I first learned about them in Brandi Broke's place, when she spun a want for a changing table, but she couldn't afford one.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have sold that stupid pinball machine.  But she and Dustin were always having to toss the baby in the air and then put the baby down to throw the diaper away, and the baby was still dirty.  The changing table is so much nicer. :)  Plus it's always cute watching them poof the baby powder on their little bottoms.  I can almost smell the baby powder, hehehe.  I imagine now nice and clean they must feel.  You don't get baby powder when you just get tossed in the air. :P

My babies never need changing!  I use Gnomon's flamingo of contentment, so although my sims love bathing them, they never really need it!

I have heard much about this flamingo, and I downloaded it, especially with Livin It Up closing soon, but I have never used it.  Just seemed too much like cheating to me, but that's just my opinion. :)

Well, I tend to regard it as an attempt to make the game more realistic - I mean, sims who flop from exhaustion after they've been up for just 5 hours is daft!  And they rarely get as tired when they're at work as they do at home - now that's unrealistic!  I only use the flamingo of contentment which Gnomon regards as a "safety-net".

The great thing about it is you can use it on a lot when you want and delete it again (ie "sell") when you want, whereas a global hack you have to exit the game to either install it or delete it.

That's strange, my sims go all day without dropping from exhaustion.  I do buy them the best beds, and they stay up until all hours (kind of like me, I guess  :-\) and the only time they pass out is when they've been up all night skilling and have to go to work or school tired.  Then they might pass out when they get home, but I send them to bed and then they are ready to get up and spend all night skilling again. :)  I try to get them straightened out though by not letting them sleep quite as long so they will be tired and go to bed at night.  Hmm, I wonder if that would work for me too...  :-\

 I haven't gotten the no social worker hack - but I won't hire a Maxis nanny. Nonono.

Instead, what I did was create a household of SuperNannies I made in CAS. They all have maxed skills and personalities using Insiminator. When both parents have to go to work, I use Inge's teleporter plus painting to summon one of the nannies and then move them in. When the kids don't need tending, I use macrotastics to make them clean and garden, and power idle when they're not needed to do anything. When a parent comes home, I have the SuperNanny "find own place" and leave. Next time I'm in the Neighborhood screen, I add her back to the main house.

I also use the money order hack to send them $100 for the day's services, to make it more realistic.

I know I could do it easier with the bottomless bottle & no social worker - but it gets to be too dull when they are toooo easy to care for, and I like the storytelling aspect of hiring the supernanny.

If one household member is Mad Scientist, that help alot with not needing a nanny.  I never use the nannies at all.  I sometimes use DMA Nicole who does a good job.  I have my sims use vacation days once baby is a toddler to make sure they are pumped full of smart milk.

My sims hardly ever get tired too. They are FORBIDDEN to drink coffee as well.  Good beds and JM's sleep clock are marvelous.

Why?

Yes, I wondered that too.

I use the best beds when my sims can afford them, but not to start with.  If sims are lazy, they don't get tired so fast, but the super-active ones like gemini and sagittarius burn out very quickly.

Mad Scientists work 10 pm to 2 am, so usually there are other family members there at night and then they are there during the day.  I take it you don't have many mad scientists? :)

My sims are always 6+ active.  Running is a must.  Ever since JM told us about lazy vs active, I've made all my sims this way.  At first I didn't believe him, but I did my own experiment, and the lazy sim got tired faster and always needed comfort, while the active sim could go all day without sitting or sleeping.  It probably depends on their job too, as some jobs are more physically demanding than others, like some jobs in law enforcement.

I actually find that active sims get tired faster, but they head for the espresso machine while lazy sims opt for a snooze!  They get tired faster because generally they want to build active skills like body and creativity.  They also need to eat more often!

I think these are all good things. :) I really agree with JM's logic about lazy vs active sims.  The less time spent sleeping the better, and if you have two or more sims drinking espresso at the same time, they will socialize, which is a good thing.

That's true. I just took all my sims to a community lot, they were all green when they left home, but by the time they returned they were knackered. It's as if the bars drop faster on a community lot. Anyway, they all had to caffeinate together and I just realised then how well they were socialising.

witch, why don't you hang at the community lots the Merola's Multi-painting? I have it in all my communities, and take care that my sims can enjoy there a lot of time, and come home all green. Why torture them? - they don't deserve it...:).

Thanks Gali, didn't know I could use the mirror on a community lot. I don't use it at home but on the c. lots it would be great.

Normally community lots are so bare of food, rest and sleep, that it hardly seems worth going. Lots of socialising though. :)

I had something very similar happen -- have a post about it around here somewhere.  Someone said that it was because I used the cell phone to hire the nanny.  I haven't had a need for a nanny since then so I haven't been able to check it out, but I thought I'd mention it in case using the regular house phone is, indeed, the solution.

Phyllis

I've started putting Gnomon's flamingoes on community lots, saves having to tell sims to look at the painting and keeps the non-controllable sims around longer too.

ta Phyllisp but my sims didn't have cells at the time. :(

I can't see the mind control mirror in buy mode on the community lot, so I'll have a fling with a flamingo. I did use one of Gnomon's flamingoes on the home lot, but it made the game no challenge at all.

I normally only use the flamingo of contentment, which only raises levels slightly, but on community lots why not - if you're prepared to use the picture, it's no different except all the sims are equally affected and you don't have to do anything.

Even when you don't normally use the flamingo, it's very helpful while toddlers are learning their skills as it keeps them going long enough to learn walking or talking in one go, and doesn't affect potty training, though it does mean babies never need a nappy change!

Witch, don't use the mirror, its the painting you want. If you use the mirror instead of the painting, your sim might not be able to call a taxi to get back home. Merola's painting on the other hand, works just fine in the community lots.

I tried using the mirror once, on a home lot, and the teen who was going to college got stuck in his taxi, so I had to exit without saving and lose about three (human) hours of gameplay!  It was extremely annoying!!!!

Merola's mirror doesn't affect needs, it just lets you control sims who aren't normally controllable.  I save compulsively, LOL.  I have learned the hard way.  I did notice that once you move a teen to college or if other sims move out, they still remain selectable in the mirror, but I didn't mess with them.  Once you save and reload the lot, they are gone.

In this particular case, the teen had not had anything to do with the mirror, I was using it purely to find out how near death Roger Ebadi the Criminal Mastermind was getting!  He just wouldn't die!!!

I would imagine that they wouldn't actually die until they appeared physically on the lot.  As long as they are offworld, their needs can drain until they hit bottom but that's all until somehow they are forced back onto the lot.  One way is to use debug cheats and force them to teleport to the mailbox by shift clicking on it.  Installing or upgrading certain hacks seem to reset my sims as well, which is annoying because if they were at work or school, they get sent back home, the adults lose that day's pay and the kids lose a grade.  But at least they all have full motives. :-\

Ebadi had kicked over the trash can for about the tenth time, so I'd stuck him in the roofspace but he wouldn't die!!!!

Did you try the cowplant?  I got tired of townies kicking over my trashcan, so I got Inge's fix for that.  I'd forgotten about them doing that!

Oh, I know there's a fix, I've even got it in my new downloads folder, but I don't really want to install it - it's not just Townies that do it, Mary-Sue Pleasant is a notorious trash-can kicker!  I don't put the hack in because it tells you something about the character of playable sims which you don't get just looking at their personality points!   For example, Keanu Broke (the youngest of the three Brokes in my game) has only one nice point, but I've never seen him do that, although he's and evil Punch-you-Punch-me player!  Shows that growing up with nice people makes a nasty sim nicer, while Mary-Sue is the reason why the Pleasant twins couldn't get along - she was obviously a destructive mother!

I remember Komei Tellerman doing it all the time, and my poor sims would always get sick.  I don't remember Mary Sue doing it, but that may be because I played the Pleasants a lot when I first got the game, and Daniel and Mary Sue were two of the first elders in my game to die.

I don't actually age that many of mine into elders, but in one version I got so sick of Mary-Sue and her "I want another kitchen counter costing more than 900 simoleons" that I let her age and then she'd wander round looking pathetic.  I've never seen an elder kick over a trash can, though.  She's done this in the current game, Daniel moved out and took Angela with him, Lilith went to college, Angela turned into a punk rocker and went to college, and Daniel finally agreed to move back with Mary-Sue - and that's when she started to kick over trash-cans!  It's when she's walked by a lot a few times and nobody's invited her in!

Komei was pretty bad in my other versions of the game, but he no longer exists in this one!

Wow, you're a Nimwitted Nuisance, and I've become a Dimwitted Dunce. :o

Never mind - I'm Zephyr-de-doo-dah at simfreaks now, and Heather's hidden the button so I can't change it to one that I choose!  And I'm supposed to be allowed to!!!!

Sorry, can't help you there. :)

No, of course not - Heather has ignored all my hints, because she invented my stupid title and doesn't want me to change it!! :'(

If I remember correctly, the Mind Control Mirror is in 'Shopping's decoratives, while the Multi-Painting is in 'Food's. I've got both in all of my community lots (which I remodelled and packaged for back-ups). The painting is great for kids (to keep their energy level up so the family can stay on community lots longer) and non-controllable sims from other families. I use the mirror to keep townies away from my sims when they appear and although there are only 2 left after I deleted all the other files, I don't want my sims to know them just yet. The mirror has been working fine since I got it for TS2, it's still working fine with the EP installed. When I have sims moving out, I save and exit the lot to move the moved-out sims into their own lots from the Family Bin, then went back to the 'host' family to make sure they are really gone. Haven't got any problems with the mirror so far  ;).

Thank you. :)

nannies are just stupid at times. imagine how happy i was when Vicki Horowitz was frightened to death by the ghosts roaming in the Specter house :D i plan to get the phone that calls Grimmy and get her back as a zombie haha