Good Perspective

Being a mom is thrilling because everyday feels like a little adventure.  What will they do today?  In recent weeks and months the pace has accelerated: clapping, waving hello/goodbye, climbing, tumbling, and always the sweet little hugs and laughs.  Like any mom, we always feel torn, how do you spend as much time as possible with them and still make sure the dishes get done and you get dressed for work?

It's probably best that getting dressed continue to be an essential function, but maybe the dishes can wait a little longer?

Song for a Fifth Child 

Mother, O' Mother, come shake out your cloth,

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth.

Hang out the washing, make up the bed,

Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as 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's 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 his eyes the most wonderful hue?

Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

But 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.

~ Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Originally published in The Lady's Home Journal (1958)