These are the Days

Chapter One: Early Morning Chaos

On the early Wednesday morning of September 7th, in a town called Midland, Tom Baker woke from his sleep and dressed in his sweat clothes. He kissed his sleeping wife Kate gently on her head and crept downstairs, stepping over the shoes and toys of his children. Tom headed out the front door and began to jog up the driveway. Across the street he went, and then along farmland of the neighbors nearby. As he jogged Tom smiled to himself and within his mind he was thinking: These are the days!

An hour past by. As Tom was jogging through the main street of Midland, admiring the quiet of the normally busy town, Kate was up and fully dressed. It was now her job to wake up Tom and her eleven sleeping children. Kate smiled sadly. At one point she had had to wake up twelve sleeping children, but their eldest daughter Nora (aged twenty-two) was already out of college and living on her own in Chicago.

Setting thoughts of Nora aside, Kate went to the first bedroom. Inside where three of her daughters, Sarah (aged thirteen) and the fraternal twins Kim and Jessica (aged nine). Kate went and tugged roughly on Sarah's bedsheets.

"Mom!" Sarah moaned, grabbing the sheets back from her mother and pulling them over her lacrosse patterned pajamas, "I was sleeping here!"

"It's time to get up and go to school, honey!" Kate said, tugging the sheets back.

Sarah opened her eyes and peered up at her mother. "Can't I just skip school today?" she asked. "It's so pointless!"

Kate stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Well, I guess you could," she said slowly. "But that means no lacrosse at all this year if you do."

Sarah's eyes widened. "I was only joking!" she said as she jumped out of bed and hurried over to her dresser.

"I thought you were," Kate replied as she made her way to Kim and Jessica's bunk bed. She was about to lean over to wake up the twins when Kim stuck her head over the top of her bunk and Jessica kicked back her sheets. "We've been up for five minutes!" they coursed as they made their way out of bed.

Kate smiled and headed for her next room. She knocked on the door lightly, but was surprised when Lorraine (aged sixteen) didn't answer. "Lorraine? Honey?" Kate called quietly as she opened the door to her daughter's room. It was empty.

"I'm in here, Mom!" Lorraine shouted from the door next to her room. Kate smiled and shook her head. Why hadn't she remembered that Lorraine was always up early so she could get to the bathroom first on the first day of school? Kate moved on to the next children, passing by an angry looking Sarah who was already pounding on the bathroom door.

Kate burst in to the next room, strode over to the window, and pulled open the shades. Sunlight filled the room, as well as the groaning of two of her sons. "Mom!" Henry (aged fifteen) cried out. "You know I don't like early morning sunshine!"

"Dude!" Jake (aged twelve) called from his side of the room. "Three words: Shut shades!"

"Dude!" Kate called back. "Three words: Get up!"

Groaning again, Henry and Jake rose wearily from their beds and stumbled as though they were drunk to their dressers. Satisfied, Kate went back into the hallway to another door. She opened it, and as if he were on a timer, her son Mark (aged ten) sat up in bed.

"Morning Mom," Mark said as he put on his glasses and looked at his mother fondly.

"Morning Mark," Kate replied. "Time to get ready for school."

"Okay," Mark replied. His mother began to shut the door.

"I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, sweetie."

As Mark began to get dressed, Kate moved up a flight of stairs to the last three occupied bedrooms. Within moments she was attempting to arouse Mike (aged seven) from his sleep, but she was getting nowhere. Finally Kate had to pick her son up from his bed and set him gently on the floor.

A shivering Mike glared up at his mother. "Mom!" he wailed. "It's cold on the floor!"

Kate smiled at her son. "I know, but there was no other way that you would have gotten up." Mike sighed and flopped on his back.

"Fine, I'll get dressed," he said as he rolled over on his side.

Kate turned and went into the next room. The identical twins Kyle and Nigel (aged five) were both sound asleep in her beds. Kate knew that she would have to dress the twins and get them ready to go to work with their father. She would have to let Tom wake up Charlie (aged eighteen).

By seven thirty Tom was back from his early morning jog. He came into his house, alive with chaos. Sarah was trying to hit Lorraine with a hairbrush, Kim and Jessica standing behind them and screaming at them to stop it, Mike was karate kicking the wall, Mark was chasing his frog Beans down the staircase, Henry was playing his clarinet loudly to the tune of 'Taps' as he watched Sarah and Lorraine fight, and Jake was lying asleep on his bedroom floor.

Amazed at the amount of chaos that was already engulfing his house, Tom yelled as loud as he could, "Stop all this racket!"

It almost worked. Kim and Jessica stopped screaming, Sarah dropped the hairbrush as Lorraine dropped a few strands of her sister's hair, Henry silenced his clarinet, and Mike stopped his foot inches away from the wall. Mark was still chasing Beans and Jake remained asleep on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Tom asked. His children all tried to speak at once, but they were quickly silenced. "Never mind," Tom said. "Lorraine, get downstairs and begin to cook breakfast. Henry, begin to pack the backpacks. I'll get Jake to help you when he's up. Sarah, set the table and pour the drinks. Have Mark help you if you can find him downstairs. Kim and Jessica, make the lunches. I believe your mother left everything out for you already. Mike, pack the lunch boxes."

Once he had finished speaking, the six children dispersed. Tom made his way over to Jake and Henry's room. He had his mouth open when Jake suddenly shot up and said, "I'm up. I've been up the whole time." He then made his way past his father and stumbled sleepily down the stairs.

Sighing, Tom went back into the hallway. "Kate?" he called.

"I'm up here!" a voice answered from the third floor hallway. Tom quickly made his way up to Kyle and Nigel's room, where he found his wife attempting to pull a shirt of a squirming Kyle's head.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Oh nothing," Tom replied as he kissed his wife gently on her head. "I just cleared off a herd of elephants downstairs, that's all."

Kate sighed and looked at her husband. "There was that early morning chaos again?" she asked.

Tom shrugged. "It happens every year," he said. "This year isn't any different."

Kate laughed. "Can you wake up Charlie for me while I finish with these two?

Tom smiled. "Surely," he replied as he made his way for his eldest son's room. He burst right in to find Charlie still asleep. "Wake up Champ," Tom said.

Charlie opened his eyes and looked at his father. "Already?" he asked.

Tom shook his head. "Come on, senior. You have to pick Beth up this morning, remember?" Charlie smiled at the thought of the girlfriend he had been with for three years.

"Okay Dad," he said. Tom smiled and headed back downstairs.

He was relieved to walk into the kitchen to find that almost all of his children were working in harmony. Mark, looking distressed, was standing by an angry looking Jessica.

"Dad, can you please tell Mark that we ran out of Nutella and all other cold cuts?" she asked her father when he walked over to the pair. "He doesn't seem to want to listen to me!"

"I can't eat peanut butter, Dad!" Mark insisted. "I'm allergic. What else will I eat if we don't have Nutella or cold cuts?"

Tom pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed five dollars to his son. "Take this and buy yourself lunch," Tom said. Mark smiled and hugged his father.

After a quick breakfast Charlie went to pick up Beth with Lorraine trailing along in the car with him, Tom had to drive Sarah, Henry, and Jake to the middle school/ junior high as well as take Nigel and Kyle to work with him, and Kate had to drive Mark, Mike, Kim and Jessica to the elementary school.

As her three children got out, Kate noticed that Mike jumped roughly onto the concrete outside of the car.

"Woah, honey! Be careful!" Kate called to her energetic son. Mike looked at his mother and waved.

Kate sighed and drove off.

A/N: Well, there you go. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I'll try to have the second one up by the weekend, but I'm not making any promises.

Please review!