Cheaper By A Baker's Dozen

Chapter 1 | Our Start

"Thirteen is our number. It's the number of games my husband Tom coaches at Lincoln College every season. lt's the number of times we zero out our bank account each year to make ends meet. And it's the number of kids we try to keep track of."

"Thirteen's an insane number of kids... but having a small family was never an option for us. See, Tom loved growing up with seven brothers and sisters. And after my sister died, l spent most of my time... wishing l had seven brothers and sisters. Tom and l met at Illinois Polytechnic University. He was a senior dreaming of becoming the head football coach there. l was a freshman dreaming of becoming a sports reporter."

"He wanted nine kids, l wanted nine kids. Bam. An hour after l met him, l knew he was the one. We just had family at the wedding. Oh, and Shake Maguire, Tom's best man. What a hot dog."

"A year later, we had our first-- Nora. l loved taking her to work with me. After Charlie, Abby, and Lorraine were born, we realized our dream of living in the city... - and having nine kids and two careers wasn't gonna work."

"As much as we wanted our big careers, we wanted our big family more. So Tom settled for a Division lll coaching job at Lincoln, l quit writing for the Tribune, and we moved to the country. Tom and l got busy when we moved to Midland. We had Henry, Sarah, Jake, and Mark in consecutive years. Then we went for magic number nine, and instead... we got the first set of fraternal twins--Jessica and Kim."

"Ten kids. Come on, you guys. Come on. With each child, Tom and l got further from our big career dreams, but we didn't think about that. We had our hands full with ten. We were happy, and we were done."

"Then we went to a party celebrating Shake Maguire's appointment to athletic director at our alma mater. And, well, too many beers, and nine months later, we had Mike. After that, Tom got a vasectomy. But he didn't hear the doctor say that it would be a few weeks before the procedure became effective. Nigel and Kyle got us to that crazy number 13. But by then, Tom and l were experts at managing chaos."

"Let's move, gang," Tom yelled as all the younger kids raced out of their parent's room to get ready, "come on, come on, come on!"

"Charlie and Abby missed their curfew again," Kate said, "last night. Take care of that."

Sarah was banging on the bathroom door while Lorraine was in there using all her bathroom time.

"Hey," Tom picked her up.

"You can only put on so much lip gloss, princess!" She yelled.

"You blew my concentration! Now l get to start all over again."

Lorraine smirked and started to reapply her lip gloss.

"Wrap it up, Lorraine!" Tom said banging on the door.

"Okay, Daddy!"

Sarah rolled her eyes. Tom made his way through the crazy hallway toward Charlie and Abby's rooms.

"Have you seen my frog, Dad?"

"Sorry, Charlie."

The little redhead shook his head.

"Uh, Nigel. Kyle."

"lt's Mark."

"l knew that."

Tom opened Charlie's door and there was Charlie just now waking up.

"Hey, teenager. You got caught on Mom radar last night. You're not gonna get that scholarship if you're out late with Beth the night before a big game."

"Well, I'm not so sure l even want to go to college."

Charlie was still half asleep.

"Since when?"

"Since Beth's mom offered me a job at the auto shop."

"Hmm. Sounds exciting. Well, we'll talk about that after you get your full ride. And, meanwhile, in by ten on school nights. Clear?"

"Got it."

"Anything else you wanna talk about?" Tom asked.

"Did l mention l don't like you very much?"

"Yeah, you mentioned that."

"Then I'm good."

"Okay, me too."

Tom walked out shutting Charlie's door and started making his way toward Abby's room. Charlie went back to sleep.

"Hey, other teenager," Tom said opening her door.

Abby was sitting there doing her homework from last night.

"Yeah?" 

"You got caught, again. In by 10 on school nights from now on."

"Yeah no."

"That wasn't a question."

She rolled her eyes.

"I'll change it."

"Fine, coach, 10 it is."