Leo’s been sick for three days now. He only wants to sleep in my arms, and for the past hour has fallen asleep three times, only to awake when I put him down. I’m content that this is his ailment and that the vomiting has subsided. Talking to my mother in law about the measles and mumps and chickenpox epidemics of her childhood has made me grateful that I deal mostly with stomach flus and sinus infections.
I’m seeing more and more that to every problem in life there is a silver lining if you look for it. Sickness brings more time to cuddle, increased alertness to baby’s signals, and a more in depth knowledge of all the great children’s programming.
Admist my pondering, I keep thinking of this poem, that I’m planning on hanging in Leo’s nursery once I hang pictures.
Cross-stitch from my Grandma Jackie, a gift in 1980 for my brother’s birth
Song for a Fifth Child
By Ruth Hulburt Hamilton (Ladies Home Journal, 1958)
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.
Sigh. Go cuddle your kids. They grow up too fast.
