"BABIES DON’T KEEP"

 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.

Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Trigger Warning!

I admit to shedding more than a few tears writing this post, thinking of how quickly those precious childhood years have sped by for my own three children. One minute you are wiping runny noses and sticking plasters on grazed knees, the next you are sending them off to University.

My youngest is only 11, but I can already clearly see the young lady she is becoming as she settles into Year 7 at school.

Photographs are so important. They provide us with tangible memories that can be revisited time and time again when our babies have long since flown the nest.

I witness how fleeting time is very week in my studio; sometimes I can't believe the child I'm welcoming back through the studio door is the tiny helpless newborn I carefully photographed what seems like a few months before!

Cuddle your children often - even when they are not so little; and never let a day go by without telling them how much you love them.

In reference to Ms Hulburt Hamilton's wonderful poem - our home has never been tidy. My children know this - but it is my dearest hope that they also know how much I have loved them throughout their childhood and, for my two grown babies, every day since xxxxx