Babies don't keep

I like a clean home. Dishes done, clutter put away (or at least, out of the way), floors recently swept and vacuumed, bathroom surfaces sanitized and sparkling-- coming home to those things decreases my stress level. Conversely, coming home after work to a messy kitchen or a pile of laundry (or bills, or anything else) on the floor makes my stress level increase. I hate cleaning, and don't do it as often as I was raised to do, but still, coming home to a clean home instantly relaxes me when I walk in the door.

But time cleaning is time away from my baby, my husband, and my bed. (Because if I'm not spending time with them, I better be sleeping these days.) So, hard as it is, I'm trying to take this poem to heart... at least a little bit, at least for a little while. Because he and his daddy are more important.

"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, 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 her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(Lullaby, rockabye, 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."

- Ruth Hulburt Hamilton