Wednesday, January 13

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,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye 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?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye 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.

*I do realize that I do not have 5 children. Not even close really. I only have one, and she isn't even a year old.

But I love the words to this poem/song. And even as a first time mama I can relate to this so much already. There are days that I am so stressed because I haven't done a lick of cleaning and it's been 3 days. But it's in those times that I like to be reminded of the fact that there is a lot that I have been doing:

Feeding my baby~singing to my baby~bouncing my baby to sleep~playing with my baby after changing her diaper~playing with my baby while I'm changing her diaper~making baby food~teaching my baby to roll over~ teaching my baby to sit up~playing with my baby while she has 'tummy time'~singing to my baby~making my baby smile/laugh~going on outings with my baby~taking pictures of my baby~writing in a journal to my baby~making silly faces for my baby~comforting my crying baby~cuddling my sweet baby...

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...