Saturday, June 23, 2007

Babies Don't Keep

With birthdays fast approaching, I am getting quite nostalgic about not having anymore babies in the house. There are many things I am looking forward to in the coming months and years, but there is nothing in the world like fat baby cheeks, slobbery kisses, and the sweet baby smell. Should they never pass our way again, I will dearly miss those things! So, I am trying to savor every moment with my precious daughter's while they are young. This poem is beautiful and sums up what I am feeling these days.

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there is nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my roo.
look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait til tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton