Important Things

As the laundry and dishes pile up to Everest proportions and I can't remember the last time I washed my hair, these words remind me to focus on what is most important right now:

Song for a Fifth Child

by: Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

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, rockabye, 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, rockabye, 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.