Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

CrazyHip Blogging Mamas journaling prompt (writing prompt? the scrapbooker in me is coming out by saying 'journaling') is home. I thought, how can I write about the mess that is my house? I'm constantly working and when I'm not working I'm trying to make certain my children are fed, clothed, and growing up happy. My home is an absolute wreck -- it's sanitary where it needs to be, but otherwise - eh, it'll wait. Granted it's nothing like what you see on Dog the Bounty Hunter or Cops - but it is pretty darn cluttered. Laundry is behind, breakfast dishes are sitting in the sink, clean dishes wait in the dishwasher to be put away - but the floor is vacuumed, kitchen and baths recently mopped, we have clean clothes and underwear. So, please tell me - why do I stress that my house isn't as neat as a pin like my sister's (whose 2 children are in 4th and 6th grades and perfectly capable of picking up after themselves), my friend (whose 4 children are varying in age from college junior to 3rd grader), my mom (whose 3 childre are grown and out of the nest). Why do I put that stress on myself? I have a three-and-a-half year old, a two-year-old who pushes buttons I didn't even know I had, and an almost-eight-month-old who still nurses. Why do I put this stress on myself?!

Then I thought about the Ruth Hulburt Hamilton poem that many of us are so familiar with - at least, most of us are familiar with the last stanza of it:

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.

It is called "Song for a Fifth Child" if you weren't aware of that (you might not even have been aware of the author) and from what I've been able to research, this poem first appeared in Ladies Home Journal in 1958. And, while I love that final stanza, I really love the entire poem that so often gets overlooked. So here it is. I think I may just do a scrapbook page of some of the "mess" in my house and put this on it.

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 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.

~~Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

And now I realize, while my house my be cluttered and be "an absolute wreck" in my mind, my home is not. And that is what really matters.