Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Babies don't keep

This is a poem that my mom relayed to me when my oldest was a newborn. It really helped me get over the "I have to be supermom" mentality. I am a mother to two high-energy boys, a wife, a full-time student (healthcare--not easy stuff), and a commuter. It took a while, but I finnally realized it was ok to quit worrying about having a perfect house and do what I can physically do, and that's a tremendous job. My kids will not remember (or care) if they had meals served on a plate that I washed a mere 30 seconds before I put the food on it, but they will remember the times that I spent reading to them, rocking them, and playing in the yard with them. As I now jokingly tell my husband, I AM Supermom, but even she has her kryptonite!

BABIES DON'T KEEP
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'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 her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing
will wait till 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......
~Author Unknown ~

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