Babies don't keep...borrowed from MckMama

The excerpt below is from one of my favorite Bloggers, MckMama. It is from her "name that photo" contest....the winning caption was "Babies Don't Keep". You should hop on over there and read the whole post....adorable picture with a perfect caption. (http://www.mycharmingkids.net) This poem makes me want to go wake up my babies and love on them----but I won't! :)


...It is from a poem by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton. I hadn't heard it in a long while, so the poem Song for a Fifth Child, written in 1958 and first published in the Ladies Home Journal, had been off my radar.

I am glad to have been reminded of it. It's positively beautiful and has been inspirational to my mothering.

I hope it will be for yours, too. Enjoy.

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.