Mother, oh Mother

Another sleepless night and pain. Good news is that I have an endoscopy on the 12th and an appointment with the surgeon on the 17th. Here's hoping that we'll soon be saying bye bye to my gallbladder very soon! WBH and I were going over our new spending tool (might post about that later) and how much we haven't been spending on food the last few weeks. Then WBH reminded me, "but you haven't been eating, so that explains it." Thanks honey. lol

So, after laying in bed for a few hours, listening to my snoring husband and dog, I am up, playing on pinterest. I was reading through the One Good Thing by Jillee blog archive, clicking on one link after another when I came across a post from another site about the power of vinegar and in the midst of that post was this poem...


Song for a Fifth Child
By Ruth Hulburt Hamilton
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


I immediately teared up. My mom used to sing this to me when I was little (and even when I was an adult, when she thought I was sleeping). I feel like I have posted this poem before, but it was just so unexpected. I mean, I was in the midst of articles about cleaning and thinking of how gross my bath tub probably is (not that I've paid attention lately) and there it was. It was like a detour sign for my thought process.

If you had known my mom, you would know that she embraced this philosophy to the fullest (going too far at times). She was ever living in the moment. Whether she was up or down, she was very up or very down. Part of this was related to her mental health, but it was more than that. It was just who she was.

I have found myself missing her a lot lately. There are still days I would give anything to be able to call her on the phone. I miss the way she would pull me into whatever was going on in her world and pull me out of my own issues. Not that things were always (or ever) easy with Mom, but I knew what I was going to get when I called her and that is something I miss.

So I am going to take a bubble bath (cleaner tub and cleaner me! Bonus!) and relax with a good book. Now that sounds like my mom. :)

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