Cheaper by the Baker's Dozen

Chapter 1

Then there's me. I am Cassandra Natalie Baker. I am a ballet dancer and I want to keep being a ballet dancer for the rest of my life. I love to perform but what I really want to do is teach kids how to dance. My Mom and Dad are really supportive about it. I work hard, I have been dancing for twelve years and also assist at my dance school as an assistant teacher so I know all the kids and students from the ages of 18 months to 58 years old, along with their parents, siblings and in the case of the adults, their children and for some, even their grandchildren. It's an awesome school. Unlike Lorraine who has a constant battle with Sarah, I don't have anyone that I constantly fight with. I am the peacemaker in the family (when possible, at least). Mom and Dad can't always be there to break up any fighting, Nora being miles away, Charlie usually chooses to ignore it, Lorraine is often right in the middle, so it falls to me to sort it out.

Doesn't matter though I wouldn't have it any other way!

I had just finished getting dressed when I heard the front door open and close. Dad was home from his morning run. I perfected my lipgloss before pulling on my cardigan and grabbing my school and dance bags. I skipped down into the kitchen and left my bags near the door, out of the way so I could get started on breakfast. From here I could easily hear my Mom and Dad talking in their room.

"Don't be ridiculious, honey," said Mom, "you know you can just pound the lumps out of the mattress."

"What do you mean?" asked Dad. I heard the distinct giggling of my younger brothers and sisters coming from their room, "you can just pound the lumps out of a mattress?!"

I left everything we needed for breakfast and lunch on the counters as well as laying out all the lunchboxes, ready to be filled before I wandered closer to their room, their door was open so I could see inside.

"Yeah, just randomly start swatting away," explained Mom with a smile as Dad sat on the edge of the bed. They both gave me a wide smile in greeting which I returned as I watched silently to see what Dad would do.

"And it goes flat?" 'wondered' Dad curiously.

"Yes, yes."

And with that Dad threw himself backwards on the bed as he flailed his arms and legs about, "You just start... just randomly start swatting!" Immediately Kim, Jessica, Jake, Mike, Nigel and Kyle appeared from under the covers as well as Gunner, all of them jumping on Dad and tickling him. It was quite a sight and I couldn't help but laugh, leaning against the doorway for support as Dad cried out, "Ah! I've got a dog on me!" Gunner chose that moment to give him a big lick all across his face. Gunner was just as much a part of our family as any of my siblings.

Glancing around, I couldn't help the wide smile on my face as I saw how happy everyone was.

"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, I spent most of my time wishing I had seven brothers and sisters.

Tom and I met at Illinois PolyTechnic University. He was a senior, dreaming of becoming the Head Football Coach there. I was a freshman, dreaming of becoming a Sports Reporter. He wanted eight kids. I wanted eight kids. Bam! An hour after I met him, I knew he was the one. We just had family at the wedding. Oh! And Tom's best man, Shake McGuire, what a hotdog.

A year later, we had our first, Nora. I loved taking her to work with me. After Charlie and our first set of twins, Lorraine and Cassandra, were born, we realized that our dream of living in the city and having eight 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 three coaching job in Lincoln and I quit writing for the Tribune, and we moved to the country.

Tom and I got busy when we moved to Midland. We had Henry, Jake, Sarah and finally number eight, Mark, in consecutive years. We then decided to take a leap and go for magic number nine and got our second set of fraternal twins, Jessica and Kim. Ten kids! With each child, Tom and I 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.