Thinking of you, Joanna

A Butterfly Lights Beside Us

A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam
And for a brief moment its glory
and beauty belong to our world
But then it flies again
And though we wish it could have stayed...
We feel lucky to have seen it.

- Unknown

What are little boys made of?

frogs

and

snails

and

Wee Wee Wee All the Way Home

My Babe...

has Pig Tails...

Piggies with sandy nails...

Never thinks that I'm a boar bore...

Is not a Baby anymore.

Poem

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.

a poem by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, written in 1958 and first published in the Ladies Home Journal

(and, no, the title is not an announcement of any kind. That would be ridiculous.)