Haikus for Mommy Guilt
Such a silly girl.
Dressed in jammie tank and shorts
Cute but not so warm.
Yet you feel the need
To join us in the wee hours,
Leaving your warm bed.
We find you curled
There, at the foot of our bed
Like some hairless cat.
You don't plan ahead,
Leaving all your blankets there,
Piled on your own bed.
Tucked in your arm, though,
One stuffed animal to hold
Against the night's chill.
So there I find you,
Small and shivering and so
Very sound asleep.
I grab you by the
Arms and haul you up by me
Where it's nice and warm.
I spend the rest of
The night bent in bizarre shapes,
Curled around your form.
I then wake and try
To walk, the pretzel woman
Gimps to the bathroom
I'm sure it's not a
Coincidence that you've done
This since I left you.
Clearly, 4 days gone
From me has left you worried
That I'd not come back.
And so, nightly, here
You come, to make sure I'm still
Here in the morning.
Guess the solution
Is to bring you with me on
All trips from now on.
There we'll be, at the
conference, me, eighty-three,
You can be my cane.
Dressed in jammie tank and shorts
Cute but not so warm.
Yet you feel the need
To join us in the wee hours,
Leaving your warm bed.
We find you curled
There, at the foot of our bed
Like some hairless cat.
You don't plan ahead,
Leaving all your blankets there,
Piled on your own bed.
Tucked in your arm, though,
One stuffed animal to hold
Against the night's chill.
So there I find you,
Small and shivering and so
Very sound asleep.
I grab you by the
Arms and haul you up by me
Where it's nice and warm.
I spend the rest of
The night bent in bizarre shapes,
Curled around your form.
I then wake and try
To walk, the pretzel woman
Gimps to the bathroom
I'm sure it's not a
Coincidence that you've done
This since I left you.
Clearly, 4 days gone
From me has left you worried
That I'd not come back.
And so, nightly, here
You come, to make sure I'm still
Here in the morning.
Guess the solution
Is to bring you with me on
All trips from now on.
There we'll be, at the
conference, me, eighty-three,
You can be my cane.
Labels: Horrid Haikus, The Small-Handed Ones
posted by Diana at 8:12 AM
13 Comments:
I love it when you do the haikus. You are so talented. It takes me forever to be able to get one to work.
Poor chilly little girl. I love the fact that she does this every night but you'd think she'd remember to bring a blanket. Well, she's young.
Like some hairless cat is my favorite line, btw.
The haikus may never become classics, but the story is lovely. I took my son on a business trip once, it atually worked out rather well. But it was not the usual kind of trip with meetings late into the night and official social events.
V.
Nothing horrid here. I see bad poems on blogs ALL THE TIME, but this doesn't qualify. This is charming, charming, charming.
I'm still wondering how you got a kid who just creeps in and curls up at your feet...? Ours do full-body assaults in the night.
The pretzel woman
is a multi-talented
and caring mother.
Wonderful haiku. I also loved the line "like some hairless cat" as well as "one stuffed animal."
Keep 'em coming...
Well done, Diana!!!
I now feel extra sad to have left you and your sister alone while I went off to see strange and weird sights in Viet Nam and Greenland.
You have such wonderful ways of communication. Just always remember these moments; they are too soon passed.
The Loving Ole RF-er
Dana- See, it's comments like this that continue to encourage me to persist in writing these terrible things. You are only hurting yourself by being so nice.
Voyager- No, not remotely classics, but as they take less than 20 minutes to compose, the whole damn lot, I'm actually shocked that the screen hasn't melted with their awfulness. But it is intentional awfulness. Some of the conferences are held in places with kids' camps. When they're a bit older, that might be something fun for them. This one, though, would not have been kid friendly.
Joce- Oh, yes. So very horrid. You are just so very nice. The little girl, though, is truly charming. I tell my grumpy back that it needs to just shut up. When she's 16, she won't want to snuggle with her mom. It's worth any amount of ow. Yes, she slowly sneaks in. Sometimes, like last night, whe's found at the foot of the bed, other times, she's wiggled between us, yet still on top of the covers.
Dumdad-
The pretzel woman
thanks you for your kind haiku
and now has a beer.
(Beer is full of B vitamins and is a good muscle relaxer, yes? It's a good wheat beer. I've put a slice of lemon in it.)
Dad- Yes, you were off serving the country and my sister and I were bunked with mom and the grandparents. I recall an episode of falling out of the top bunk, once. May explain a lot about me.
Oh how they worm their way into out hearts....even when we probably should be annoyed that they're wandering the hallway all hours of the night.
Does this mean no wild CME course for us in the near future, or just that we'll have an underaged chaperone?
Very nicely done.
Love that she comes in to make sure you are still there...
As for the pretzel. Can so totally relate. Except mine is a true bed hog. How can someone so small take up so much space.
Christie- No, no. We'll just need to party in a place that has bad pizza and gives tokens for games. In a few years, though, she can be our designated driver.
Lauren- She is lovely to me, she just literally kicks Charles out of bed with the drumming of her feet on his person all night long.
Such a neat tribute to a little soft form who creeps quietly into the night with you! You were indeed missed!
Oh! this was poignant! Really. I could feeling her loneliness and worry and need to be near you and the guilt you feel.
Have you ever considered a new career? Writing haikus for a living?
Ruth- When I get really maudlin, I wonder how my kids will remember me if I were to die today. Colin, being 8, would have memories of me as an adult, but probably somewhat fuzzy ones. Sara would only have vague ones. But at least I can say that she really, really loves me, even if her memory of me was only a vague whisper.
Teri- Thankfully, she no longer comes in to the room in the morning, crying that she thought I was still gone. Talk about a knife in the heart. She admits that she waits for the reading light to go off and then sneaks in to be with us. Awww.
She missed you. That's so sweet. Enjoy the time she sleeps with you. Not that I have kids, but I think that time seems to fly by. The wanting to be close.
Ridiculous as it is, I miss being able to crawl into my mom's bed in the middle of the night for comfort from the bad dreams.
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