A few pictures and a poem~

A friend sent me a forward several days ago and I wanted to show my favorite pictures from it here... Enjoy~

It rained most of the day, so Mom and I worked on clothes and I made Peanut Butter Blossoms. Dad and Jacob worked on cleaning up the shop a bit and Andrew worked on his "Thank yous" some more...

The rain amounted to half an inch, and we're grateful for it! It's so nice to see everything so green this year!!!

I was looking through one of my favorite poem books tonight (The Best Loved Poems of the American People)--searching for a poem about rain. I found a couple, but none that I would post here. However, in the process, I found an interesting poem about rocking babies. :) I thought it went well with all the little people pictures above, so decided to post it now.

May there be more mothers every day who want to stay at home and rock their baby's cradle!

THE MODERN BABY

by William Croswell Doane

"The hand that rocks the cradle"--but there is no such hand;

It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand;

So the cradle's but a relic of the former foolish days

When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways--

When they jounced them and they bounced them, these poor dwarfs of long ago--

The Washingtons and Jeffersons and Adamses, you know.

They warn us that the baby will possess a muddled brain

If we dandle him or rock him--we must carefully refrain;

He must lie in one position, never swayed and never swung,

Or his chance to grow to greatness will be blasted while he's young.

Ah! To think how they were ruined by their mothers long ago--

The Franklins and the Putnams and the Hamiltons, you know.

Then we must feed the baby by the schedule that is made,

And the food that he is given must be measured out or weighed.

He may bellow to inform us that he isn't satisfied,

But he couldn't grow to greatness if his wants were all supplied.

Think how foolish nursing stunted those poor weaklings, long ago--

The Shakespeares and the Luthers and the Buonapartes, you know.

We are given a great mission, we are here today on earth

To bring forth a race of giants, and to guard them from their birth,

To insist upon their freedom from the rocking that was bad

For our parents and their parents, scrambling all the brains they had.

Ah! If they'd been fed by schedule would they have been stunted so?

The Websters and the Lincolns and the Roosevelts, you know.