All About Arden

Hello everyone.  My name is Aiden Westbrook, and my mum is Arden Westbrook.

But she's not just my mum.  She is also the mother to my 57 (so far) brothers and sisters, which is what makes her so special.  As I am her 'halfway baby', her 50th child, I thought I would tell you a little bit about my mum.  She posts a lot about us kids on here (she has 58 after all) and not much about herself.  I bet you didn't know that she has 27 traits and has maxed out 13 skills!  Let's take a look, shall we?

This is mum back when she was young, poor and childless.

She moved into this house, a starter in Willow Creek.

She worked for a while as a tech guru to save up to afford all the kids she was destined to have.

Eventually she became pregnant for the first time!  Then she had my older brothers...

Arlo (#1)

And Asher (#2).  Her first babies were twin boys, a happy surprise!

 Bonnie (#3) was next.

Followed by Faye (#4).

She was blessed with identical twin girls next: Sage (#5).

And Kaya (#6)

Hadley (#7) was next, rounding out the original household.

 Lachlan (#8) came afterwards.

And then Reid (#9), her first mini-me.

Oscar (#10) rounded out the first ten!

Angus (#11)...

And Elodie (#12) (here with mum) were next, mum's first set of boy/girl twins.

Simon (#13) followed.

Who himself was shortly followed by best bud Felix (#14), back.

The king of funny faces, Max (#15), was next. 

Another set of identical twin girls were Tessa (#16)...

And Zara (#17).  Both of these girls became multiple mamas, Tessa having quadruplets and Zara having quintuplets!

Leo (#18) came next.

Poppy-haired Poppy (#19) followed.

Then Briar (#20).

Then Sasha (#21), whom mum regrets as showing the least.

Then along came Remy (#22).

Then the first set of fraternal girls came, including Georgia (#23)...

And Jade (#24).

Another set of fraternal girls followed, with Hazel (#25)...

And Harlow (#26).

Then came the most different-looking full siblings on the planet, Benjamin (#27)...

And his twin sister Genevieve (#28).

Next was Violet (#29), a singleton after three sets of twins.

And along came Archie (#30)...

 

And his identical twin, Owen (#31), marking mum's first (and so far only) set of identical boys.

Next up came Rhys (#32).

Followed by Cameron (#33).

 And then her first half-alien, Hugo (#34)!

 Then came (by accident), Hugo's full sisters, River (#35)...

And Melody (#36).

Then came Finn (#37), another half-alien.

And Scarlett (#38) followed.

Then came pretty Ottilie (#39).

Following suit was one Reilly (#40).

Then chef Harry (#41).

Coming up next was Beckett (#42).

Still in singleton country, next is Zoe (#43)! 

Elliot followed (#44).

Then she finally broke the singleton streak with Darby (#45)...

And Esme (#46) (here with her husband Benjamin).

Claus, born on Winterfest, was next (#47).

Declan (#48), here with mum of course, came next.

Along with his twin, Otis (#49).

And oh, hey, who's this dashing bloke?  It's me, Aiden!  (#50) 

And as soon as mum was in her second half, after me, she finally had triplets (with Father Winter, mind you)!  First Holly (#51)...

Then Louis (#52).

And lastly Finley (#53).

Now we're up to the kids still living at home!  Maisie was next (#54).

Then her first set of girl/boy twins where the girl is older! Amelia (#55).

And Ralph (#56).

 And the latest additions are twins Iris (#57)...

And Piper (#58).

And that's all her kids up until now!

Now back to the lady that this post is all about.

Mum has fluctuated wildly with her weight, as you would expect being constantly pregnant.

 Arden: "Oh, did you have to bring that up, Aiden?"

 

Aiden: "Oh hey, Mum, didn't realise you were there.  I was just doing a little piece on you for your blog."

Arden: "You were?" 

Aiden: "Yeah, of course.  I thought since you were now halfway to your goal that everyone should hear about you for a change.  And who better to do it than your halfway baby, moi?"

Arden: "Well that's a lovely thing to do, darling!"

Aiden: "I just finished up recapping all 58 of your children - it took a while."

Arden: "Tell me about it.  I carried and gave birth to all of you!"

Aiden:  "And now I was just going to tell them how absolutely ripped you are."

Arden: "Oh.  Carry on, then."

Aiden: "As I was saying, Mum has had quite a journey with her body.  Here she is, pre-pregnancy and with zero fitness skill."

Arden: "Oh, I was so young and naive!  I may be at peak fitness now but my hips and boobs will never be the same."

Arden: "Why were you so sad?"

Aiden: "Probably because I'd just eaten the fruitcake my neighbours brought over."

Arden: "Haha, that's me going jogging for the first time in my life.  There's our first house in the background!  This was when I was waiting for Arlo and Asher to move out, so I'd only had 7 babies by this point."

Aiden: "And I think this is the biggest you've ever been."

Arden: "My God, I was wide.  This was after I had Hazel and Harlow, I believe.  There's Sasha and Remy in the back, bless!"

Aiden: "Here is where you got really skinny." 

Arden: "Oh I think that was just before I got pregnant with Violet and we built this house.  That was only one pregnancy after the previous photo, actually.  If I remember correctly, I really buckled down with working out after having Ben and Gen."

Arden: "This was when I reached peak fitness.  Then I became pregnant with Zoe and I don't think I've been back to that body since."

Aiden: "Bloody Zoe."

Arden: "Hey!"

Aiden: "Sorry.  Rest in peace, dear sister.  But this next picture is you the other day."

Arden: "Yeah, okay.  I'm not as skinny but I'm just as muscular."

Aiden: "You have given birth to 58 children.  That is an incredible feat.  I know you were doing this as a challenge, but did you ever think you would actually be able to do it, and the way it has?  I mean, you've just hit equal numbers of daughters and sons which is incredible."

Arden: "I mean it's so interesting, the way things have panned out.  All I knew was I was set to have 100 children.  I've never influenced a gender or manipulated multiples.  Everything has panned out on its own.  It's just fate that in 43 pregnancies, so far, I've had 29 singletons, 13 sets of twins, and one set of triplets.  And, liked you said, I've just with my latest birth reached a gender equilibrium, with 29 sons and 29 daughters which is nice!  It's been a long time since the numbers were even."

Aiden: "Most of your children have long since passed away, but do you ever think about them?"

Arden: "Of course!  I may have 58 children but it is impossible to forget even one of them.  If you stood any one of them in front of me, I could tell you instantly who they were.  I may not think of each and every child every day, but sometimes a new baby will come along who looks uncannily like one of their older siblings and it makes me think of them.  And, of course, after each baby passes away I write a eulogy for them which forces me to go down memory lane.  And everything is documented here, so I can go back and read about any one of my babies whenever I want."

Aiden: "Not to mention your gallery..."

Arden: "Of course, my secret gallery.  I think I've only shown it once or twice on here.  It's really just for me until the end when I will reveal it to the world.  Basically, I have painted each and every one of my children as young adults and placed their portraits in my secret gallery.  Unfortunately, the portraits of Babies 12 and 13, Elodie and Simon, are missing."  

Aiden: "Now, onto your statistics."

Arden: "Oh God, there's too many!  Don't bore the poor people."

Aiden: "You have an incredible 27 traits.  That's got to be a record.  You've maxed out 13 skills."

Arden: "It should be more.  But, raising children is my first and foremost job."

Aiden: "Let's take a look at your traits."

Aiden: "Talk us through them."

Arden: "Well, I started out with Art Lover, Neat, Family Oriented and Domestic.  A lot of them I purchased as rewards, but some of them came from completing aspirations."

Aiden: "You've completed six, right?"

Arden: "I think so.  You seem to know more about me than I do!  One of those was the positivity challenge though.  It's hard to complete all the aspirations since a lot of them require you to reach a certain level in a career, which I obviously cannot do.  Also some of them don't recognise things you've already done before you selected the aspiration."

Aiden: "I wouldn't exactly call Free Services a trait, either."

Arden: "No, neither would I.  It's more of a perk.  And I don't know about the Shrewd one.  Apparently I'm supposed to get a deposit each week, but I haven't noticed."

Aiden: "Now let's look at your skills."

 

Aiden: "What do you reckon your first one to max out was?"

Arden: "It would have been Cooking.  Probably followed by Painting, I'd say.  I think the one that took me the quickest, unsurprisingly, was Parenting.  As soon as it became available, I was levelling up so quickly."

Aiden: "Some of these seem really hard to level up in."

Arden: "Yeah, there's definitely a few on here I will probably never max out.  Selvadoradian Culture is one that immediately sticks out.  I mean, you have to travel to Selvadorada to improve the skill, which we have only been to once.  It's the same with Archaeology."

Aiden: "Are there any you are surprised about?"

Arden: "I think there are a few on here I'm surprised I'm not higher in.  Logic is definitely one.  Obviously when we had Joey I didn't train him very much since I'm only on level one of Pet Training."

Aiden: "I'm surprised you are so highly levelled in Rocket Science."

Arden: "It's all those GeekCons I've been to.  I always make it a mission to have a go working on the rocket." 

Aiden: "Which one do you think you will max out next?"

Arden: "Well looking at that, you'd think Baking.  But I've actually been working on Piano a bit lately, so you never know.  Maybe it will be a completely random skill!"

Aiden: "And it looks like you've at least started on every skill you can."

Arden: "I think there's a few I'm yet to try: Veterinarian, Pipe Organ, Acting, Media Production, Violin and DJ Mixing are the ones I'm yet to dabble in.  I promise when I revisit this at 100 babies I'll have more skills!"

Aiden: "I have one final question - did you purposely give me a name that is one letter different from yours?"

Arden: "No, actually!  I just liked the name.  I guess it worked out nicely that the name most similar to mine belongs to my halfway baby."

Aiden: "Well, there you have it, everyone.  The post all about my mother, Arden, the matriarch of the Westbrook family.  Thanks for giving some insights into yourself, Mum."

Arden: "And thank you, darling, for writing a post about me!  It's so thoughtful of you, and a great way to commemorate the halfway point in my challenge."