In recent weeks, I think my Dad might have been peering over my shoulder, offering a gentle needed reminder with one of his favorite sayings.  “No one ever went to the grave wishing she’d spent more time at the office, you know.”

I know, Dad.  I know, and it’s the weekend.  Finally!  I found myself sitting across the breakfast table from our youngest who was reading a newspaper article about the Science Museum’s Countdown Cookie Contest.

If you have never been to the Science Museum of Virginia, Boost, their newest permanent exhibit, is a must see, but I’ll save that recommendation for a future blog.  (Click the highlighted links if you want to know more now.)

“How about we enter this contest, Mom.  We can bake one of our family Christmas cookies, and it’ll be just like an episode of Cake Boss.”

Having never actually watched an episode of Cake Boss, my first thought was that it will be nothing like a made-for-TV program edited to perfection where someone else does all the prep work, but it was too late for that line of reasoning.  I know what happens when the creative juices begin to flow in our home.  They usually trash the kitchen.

Then they consume all of the time set aside for Glue Work, that’s what I call grocery shopping and errands and all the tasks that hold a household together.

“Think, Think, Think,” my Winnie-the-Pooh inner philosopher screamed.  An affirmative response to this child’s question will confirm forever that Aunt Chris is the pastry chef of the family and that I am … well, something else.

I am a working mother (as though there is another kind?)  I have had many pressing work obligations in recent weeks, and as a parent knows when life is out of balance, there’s only one way to put priorities straight.  Bake cookies, right?   And so we did.

Song For A Fifth Child by Ruth Hamilton.  1958

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.

She is our fifth child.  Thanks to Google and a distant memory of a few lines, I was able to find this poem.  It’s one that my own Grandmother recited to me, here and there, after our oldest was born.  As we get ready for the holiday season and all the fast-paced fun that comes with it, I’m remembering that “cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow.”  I’m not the least concerned with winning the Countdown Cookie Contest either. In choosing to set aside work and to be present to my child, I’ve already won “Mother-of-the-Year” from the judge who matters most.