seven weeks

Seven weeks is really early, but at my appointment Friday I heard little spirit baby's heart beat. He (?) was in the perfect position so the mid-wife thought she'd give it a try. Isn't it amazing that a seven week embryo (technically speaking) has a heart beat? It was pretty neat and just made me love the little guy that much more - something about the reality making of hearing that little heart beating, if only for a brief moment.

This little one is either number three or number five depending on how you're counting. Since I count myself as Mom to the boys, even if only step-mom, it's number five. But it is also my third pregnancy and the three younger ones will have a really different life than the two older ones. I hope they'll still know each other when they're older, in spite of the boys being out of the house when the little ones will be so young. I'll only have five at home for two and a half years.

A friend posted a link to this poem and it made me think of this fifth child.


Song for a Fifth Child

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 as 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 and 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).

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will 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. Babies don’t keep.

1958 Ruth Hulburt Hamilton