Babies Don’t Keep. | Wilmington Ohio Baby Photographer

I have always loved the poem, “Babies Don’t Keep.” Nothing is so bittersweet as seeing my babies grow up right before my eyes. Lucas is growing up so fast. I blinked, and he turned one. He climbs, he runs, he grows… too fast.

Lucas has elbow dimples. He has 7 teeth, because that other one on the bottom left just won’t come in. When he smiles really big, he crosses his teeth in a funny diagonal way that cracks me up. When he’s really sleepy, he sings what I call the “sleepy song” as his eyes slowly flutter open and closed. He sometimes makes this face where he scrunches up his eyebrows and grins really big, and then he laughs like he knows he looks goofy.

Happy First Birthday to my Lucas, my happy, serious, goofy, beautiful little boy!

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.