Nursery Kids Quotes

Ring around the rosie. A pocket full of posie. Ashes ashes, we all fall down. Some people say that this poem is about the Black Death, the fourteenth-century plague that killed 100-million people... Sadly, though, most experts think this is nonsense... How can I be so sure about this rhyme when all the experts disagree? Because I ate the kid who made it up.

The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did.

Ask me again if I want kids,” he says. “Why? Are you changing your answer?” “I am. Ask me again.” “Do you want kids?” He smiles at me. “I only want kids if I can have them with you. I want to have lots of kids with you. I want to watch your belly grow and I want to watch you hold our baby for the first time and I want to watch you cry because you’re so deliriously happy. And at night I want to stand outside the nursery and watch you rock our babies to sleep while you sing to them. I can’t think of anything I want more than to make you a mother.

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school, And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day. She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand, And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd. At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair

Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he'd got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the HRUUUGH! But is this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city, the only sound those animals would make was "sizzle." But the nursery was full of the conspiracy with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked. One evening, after a trying day, he'd tried the Vimes street version: Where's my daddy? Is that my daddy? He goes "Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!" He is Foul Ol' Ron! No, that's not my daddy! It had been going really well when Vimes heard a meaningful little cough from the doorway, wherein stood Sybil. Next day, Young Sam, with a child's unerring instinct for this sort of thing, said "Buglit!" to Purity. And that, although Sybil never raised the subject even when they were alone, was that. From then on Sam stuck rigidly to the authorized version.

He’s very cute and lots of fun and certainly means you no harm. But sometimes he acts really silly and wears a sock on each arm.

It was the same book, every day. The pages of said book were rounded and soft where Young Sam had chewed them, but to one person in this nursery this was the book of books, the greatest story ever told. Vimes didn't need to read it any more. He knew it by heart. It was called Where's My Cow? The unidentified complainant had lost their cow. That was the story, really. Page one started promisingly: Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Baa!" It is a sheep! That's not my cow! Then the author began to get to grips with their material: Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Neigh!" It is a horse! That's not my cow! At this point the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul. Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Hruuugh!" It is a hippopotamus! That's not my cow! This was a good evening. Young Sam was already grinning widely and crowing along with the plot. Eventually, the cow would be found. It was that much of a pageturner. Of course, some suspense was lent by the fact that all other animals were presented in some way that could have confused a kitten, who perhaps had been raised in a darkened room. The horse was standing in front of a hatstand, as they so often did, and the hippo was eating at a trough against which was an upturned pitchfork. Seen from the wrong direction, the tableau might look for just one second like a cow ... Young Sam loved it, anyway. It must have been the most cuddled book in the world. Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he'd got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the "Hruuugh!" But was this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city the only sound those animals would make was "sizzle" But the nursery was full of the conspiracy, with baa-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.

The breakdown of the neighborhoods also meant the end of what was essentially an extended family....With the breakdown of the extended family, too much pressure was put on the single family. Mom had no one to stay with Granny, who couldn't be depended on to set the house on fire while Mom was off grocery shopping. The people in the neighborhood weren't there to keep an idle eye out for the fourteen-year-old kid who was the local idiot, and treated with affection as well as tormented....So we came up with the idea of putting everybody in separate places. We lock them up in prisons, mental hospitals, geriatric housing projects, old-age homes, nursery schools, cheap suburbs that keep women and the kids of f the streets, expensive suburbs where everybody has their own yard and a front lawn that is tended by a gardener so all the front lawns look alike and nobody uses them anyway....the faster we lock them up, the higher up goes the crime rate, the suicide rate, the rate of mental breakdown. The way it's going, there'll be more of them than us pretty soon. Then you'll have to start asking questions about the percentage of the population that's not locked up, those that claim that the other fifty-five per cent is crazy, criminal, or senile. WE have to find some other way....So I started imagining....Suppose we built houses in a circle, or a square, or whatever, connected houses of varying sizes, but beautiful, simple. And outside, behind the houses, all the space usually given over to front and back lawns, would be common too. And there could be vegetable gardens, and fields and woods for the kids to play in. There's be problems about somebody picking the tomatoes somebody else planted, or the roses, or the kids trampling through the pea patch, but the fifty groups or individuals who lived in the houses would have complete charge and complete responsibility for what went on in their little enclave. At the other side of the houses, facing the, would be a little community center. It would have a community laundry -- why does everybody have to own a washing machine?-- and some playrooms and a little cafe and a communal kitchen. The cafe would be an outdoor one, with sliding glass panels to close it in in winter, like the ones in Paris. This wouldn't be a full commune: everybody would have their own way of earning a living, everybody would retain their own income, and the dwellings would be priced according to size. Each would have a little kitchen, in case people wanted to eat alone, a good-sized living space, but not enormous, because the community center would be there. Maybe the community center would be beautiful, lush even. With playrooms for the kids and the adults, and sitting rooms with books. But everyone in the community, from the smallest walking child, would have a job in it.

They may have been singing and wearing pretty scarves, but their signs and placards were clear. Anne had tied one to Tony’s pram that read MY MUMMY WANTS TO HELP WIN THE WAR. Maeve and her girls had used chalk to write on blackout cards NURSERIES FOR KIDS, WAR WORK FOR MOTHERS, while another pram sported a sign saying HELP MUMMY HELP OUR DADDY. Two women I didn’t recognise held pieces of cardboard that read WE NEED NURSERIES TO HELP WIN THE WAR.

At the age of thirty-seven She realised she'd never ride Through Paris in a sports car With the warm wind in her hair So she let the phone keep ringing And she sat there softly singing Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised In her daddy's easy chair Her husband, he's off to work And the kids are off to school And there are, oh, so many ways For her to spend the day She could clean the house for hours Or rearrange the flowers Or run naked through the shady street Screaming all the way

Well, first you have two years of nursery school. Then a year of kindergarten, then you have twelve years of grade school and high school. Then you go to college for four years. Then you might get a master’s degree and become a lawyer or you might go to medical school and become a doctor, then you work for forty years, get promoted if you do a good job, make some money. And then, when you are as old as Grandpa, you can retire. “And during that time,” he continued, “you buy a house, you get married and have kids and send them to college. And then they do the same thing.

The world exists for our education; it is the nursery of God's children, served by troubled slaves, troubled because the children are themselves slaves—children, but not good children. Beyond its own will or knowledge, the whole creation works for the development of the children of God into the sons of God. When at last the children have arisen and gone to their Father; when they are clothed in the best robe, with a ring on their hands and shoes on their feet, shining out at length in their natural, their predestined sonship; then shall the mountains and the hills break forth before them into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Then shall the fables of a golden age, which faith invented, and unbelief threw into the past, unfold their essential reality, and the tale of paradise prove itself a truth by becoming a fact. Then shall every ideal show itself a necessity, aspiration although satisfied put forth yet longer wings, and the hunger after righteousness know itself blessed. Then first shall we know what was in the Shepherd's mind when he said, 'I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

Anyway,” Beau—clearly eager to change the subject—pointed down the hall, “let’s talk about the color Jethro decided to paint the second bedroom.” “What’s wrong with green?” Jethro grinned slyly. His poker face had always sucked. “Nothing is wrong with green, but that’s a very odd shade of green. What was it called again?” “Sweet pea,” Duane supplied flatly for his twin. “It was called sweet pea and I believe it was labeled as nursery paint.” “Nursery paint, huh? You have something to tell us, Jethro?” Beau teased, mirroring Jethro’s grin. “No news to share? No big bombshell to drop?” Jethro glanced at me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them yet.” “Why would I? I’m good at keeping secrets.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, making sure I looked innocent. “And I’m not the one who’s pregnant.” “I knew it!” Beau attacked Jethro, pulling him into a quick man-hug. Jethro’s grin widened to as large as I’ve ever seen it. “How could you possibly know?” Duane clapped Jethro on the back as soon as Beau released him. “Because you’ve always wanted kids, and weren’t one to futz around once you made up your mind.” “You should have painted it vomit green, to disguise all the baby vomit you’re going to have to deal with,” Beau suggested. “And shit brown,” Duane added. “Don’t forget about the shit.” “Y’all are the best.” Jethro placed his hands over his chest. “You warm my heart.” “Make sure the floor is waterproof.” Beau grabbed a beer and uncapped it. “Don’t tell me, to catch the vomit and poop?” “No,” Beau wagged his eyebrows, “because of all the crying you’re going to do when you can’t sleep through the night or make love to your woman anymore.” “Ah, yes. Infant-interuptus is a real condition. No cure for it either.” Duane nodded and it was a fairly good imitation of my somber nod. In fact, how he sounded was a fairly good imitation of me. You sound like Cletus.” Drew laughed, obviously catching on. Duane slid his eyes to mine and gave me a small smile. I lifted an eyebrow at my brother to disguise the fact that I thought his impression was funny. “Y’all need to lay off. Babies are the best. Think of all the cuddling. This is great news.

Church is important to most folks in the South. So the most important thing going is basically ruled by men as decreed by the Big Man himself. Not only that, but the church puts pressures on women that it does not put on men. Young women are expected to be chaste, moral, and pure, whereas young men are given way more leeway, ’cause, ya know, boys will be boys. Girls are expected to marry young and have kids, be a helpmate to their husbands (who are basically like having another child), and, of course, raise perfect little Christian babies to make this world a better place. So while it’s the preacher man who controls the church, it’s the women—those helpmates—who keep that shit going. They keep the pews tidy and wash the windows; type up the bulletins; volunteer for Sunday school, the nursery, youth group, and Vacation Bible School; fry the chicken for the postchurch dinners; organize the monthly potluck dinners, the spaghetti supper to raise money for a new roof, and the church fund drive; plant flowers in the front of the church, make food for sick parishioners, serve food after funerals, put together the Christmas pageant, get Easter lilies for Easter, wash the choir robes, organize the church trip, bake cookies for the bake sale to fund the church trip, pray unceasingly for their husband and their pastor and their kids and never complain, and then make sure their skirts are ironed for Sunday mornin’ service. All this while in most churches not being allowed to speak with any authority on the direction or doctrine of the church. No, no, ladies, the heavy lifting—thinkin’ up shit to say, standing up at the lectern telling people what to do, counting the money—that ain’t for yuns. So sorry.

In a seedy cinema on ru du Temple, watching Disney's Peter Pan with my son, I found that although we were all gazing at the same screen in the flickering dark, I was seeing a different film to the rest of the audience. What seemed fantastical and exotic to the Parisian kids looked like home to me. I knew secret coves and hidey-holes like those of the Lost Boys. I'd grown up in a world of rocky islands, boats and obscuring bush. To my mind the only setting that was alien - even whimsical - was the cold, lonely nursery in the Darling family attic. The wild opportunity of Neverland with its freedom from adult surveillance was deeply, warmly familiar. Watching the movie for the umpteenth time and seeing it anew, forsaking story and focusing greedily on the backdrop, I understood what a complete stranger I was in that hemisphere. But acknowledging my strangeness made those years abroad easier to digest and enjoy.

After Laurie was born, Russell and Dantzel were waiting for the nurse to bring their new baby to them. Dantzel had been under anesthetic during delivery and hadn’t yet seen her little girl. Suddenly she said, “I hear our baby crying.” “You’re kidding,” Russell replied. “You haven’t even seen her yet.” But Dantzel insisted, “That’s our baby. I know her voice.” She asked Russell to check, so he walked into the corridor and down to a large cart that carried babies in their bassinets from the nursery to their mothers’ rooms. There was only one baby crying. “They all looked alike to me, so I checked the I.D. tag and found that the one crying was labeled ‘Baby Girl Nelson, Room 571.’ That was an inspiration to me. Dantzel knew her child’s voice even before she had ever heard it. I couldn’t help but think about the Savior’s statement that ‘my sheep know my voice.’” In this case, the “shepherd” knew the voice of her sheep.

There are people in this country who will argue that because of the demise of morals in general, and Sunday school in particular, kids today are losing their innocence before they should, that because of cartoons and Ken Starr and curricula about their classmates who have two mommies, youth learn too soon about sex and death. Well, like practically everyone else in the Western world who came of age since Gutenberg, I lost my innocence the old-time-religion way, by reading the nursery rhyme of fornication that is the Old Testament and the fairy tale bloodbath that is the New. Job taught me Hey! Life's not fair! Lot's wife taught me that I'm probably going to come across a few weird sleazy things I won't be able to resist looking into. And the book of Revelation taught me to live in the moment, if only because the future's so grim. Being a fundamentalist means going straight to the source. I was asked to not only read the Bible, but to memorize Bible verses. If it wasn't for the easy access to the sordid Word of God I might have had an innocent childhood. Instead, I was a worrywart before my time, shivering in constant fear of a god who, from what I could tell, huffed and puffed around the cosmos looking like my dad did when my sister refused to take her vitamins that one time. God wasn't exactly a children's rights advocate. The first thing a child reading the Bible notices is that you're supposed to honor your mother and father but they're not necessarily required to reciprocate. This was a god who told Abraham to knife his boy Isaac and then at the last minute, when the dagger's poised above Isaac's heart, God tells Abraham that He's just kidding. This was a god who let a child lose his birthright because of some screwball mix-up involving fake fur hands and a bowl of soup. This was a god who saw to it that his own son had his hands and feet nailed onto pieces of wood. God, for me, was not in the details. I still set store by the big Judeo-Christian messages. Who can argue with the Ten Commandments? Don't kill anybody: don't mess around with other people's spouses: be nice to your mom and dad. Fine advice. It was the minutiae that nagged me.

In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children in residential nurseries were reunited with their mothers after separations lasting from twelve days to twenty-one weeks. The separations were in every case due to family emergencies and the absence of other caregivers, and in no case due to any intent on the parents’ part to abandon the child. In the first few days following the mother's departure the children were anxious, looking everywhere for the missing parent. That phase was followed by apparent resignation, even depression on the part of the child, to be replaced by what seemed like the return of normalcy. The children would begin to play, react to caregivers, accept food and other nurturing. The true emotional cost of the trauma of loss became evident only when the mothers returned. On meeting the mother for the first time after the days or weeks away, every one of the ten children showed significant alienation. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers. The other eight turned away or even walked away from her. Most of them either cried or came close to tears; a number alternated between a tearful and an expressionless face. The withdrawal dynamic has been called “detachment” by John Bowlby. Such detachment has a defensive purpose. It has one meaning: so hurtful was it for me to experience your absence that to avoid such pain again, I will encase myself in a shell of hardened emotion, impervious to love — and therefore to pain. I never want to feel that hurt again. Bowlby also pointed out that the parent may be physically present but emotionally absent owing to stress, anxiety, depression, or preoccupation with other matters. From the point of view of the child, it hardly matters. His encoded reactions will be the same, because for him the real issue is not merely the parent's physical presence but her or his emotional accessibility. A child who suffers much insecurity in his relationship with his parents will adopt the invulnerability of defensive detachment as his primary way of being. When parents are the child's working attachment, their love and sense of responsibility will usually ensure that they do not force the child into adopting such desperate measures. Peers have no such awareness, no such compunctions, and no such responsibility. The threat of abandonment is ever present in peer-oriented interactions, and it is with emotional detachment that children automatically respond. No wonder, then, that cool is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue. Although the word cool has many meanings, it predominately connotes an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes.

But where are the socks in the morning, Mom? Not outside in the hall. No matter how long I look for them I can’t find any at all.

Mom laughed and said, “It’s just Rocky Plum.” “Who in the world is that?

We don't have the keys, Rhys. And you can't drive a Tesla drunk. I know the damn thing drives itself, but that can't be allowed. If that's allowed, next thing you know people will be strapping their kids in and sending them to nursery in a car with no driver! Society has gone to hell." I shake my head and think about waving a fist in the air like an old man. Because I'm fucking old.

Many people have concluded that parents cannot be expected to know what to do without formal training. There are all kinds of parenting courses now, and even classes teaching parents how to read nursery rhymes to their toddlers. Yet experts cannot teach what is most fundamental to effective parenting. The power to parent does not arise from techniques, no matter how well meant, but from the attachment relationship.

You want to see if you can train the evil singing nursery ghost to...do what? Babysit evil children?

The Psychopathology of CCD What am I doing tomorrow? Don’t ask me. Just follow the dance of my double helix, its sinuous spiral twisting like an impetuous nursery of stars on a collision course with the child care nebula. Maybe you can read my palm pilot for my schedule -- I’m just a drone serving the queen bee, serving some other queen, in some master plan unknown to me, possibly unknown even to the Omniscient Beeing, no longer smug in Her certainty, her kids rooting for the teat of extinction, thirsty, hungry, wet and gone clubbing all night. I can’t handle the stress anymore, pesticides, cell phone radiation, genetically modified crops, a Starbucks on every other block, global warming, gay marriage and now this economic crisis. Fuck it! I’m not going back to the hive. I’ve flying to Bali and opening up a yoga/dance studio with an organic café. “Wait! I’m coming with you.” “Me too!

Everybody loves a good mystery. In this one, Sarah Hoyt sets us up with a secret hidden within the nursery rhymes preserved for kids on a multigenerational starship. Why, one goes on to wonder, would anyone need to hide information on a starship anyhow? *** Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been twenty and faced with the oldest problem a girl could have. I was being courted by two men and I didn’t know which I preferred.

She has a kid in her class who has a backpack with wheels on it. Yes, wheels. That way, when the child gets tired of carrying the things they don’t need to nursery school, they can roll the bag of nothing around.

Having seen her endure nine months of discomfort during pregnancy and the horrendous pain of childbirth, I could hardly believe my ears when she told me she wanted to have a second child. Now a seasoned pro, I was thrilled to help her again. And together we went through it all once more. As her children grew from infants in cribs to toddlers in nursery school, I picked them up from school, helped with birthday parties, and babysat, to give my friend much-needed afternoon breaks.

Close your eyes sweetheart.” “Why?” I dragged out the word a bit. Brandon stepped close and placed his lips to my ear, his fingers gently rubbing my swollen stomach. “I have a surprise for you, will you please close them?” I obeyed and he took my hands to lead me to another room, my jaw dropped when I finally opened them. “When did you do this?” I glanced around at our bedroom that was dim, the only light coming from candles, and the huge bouquets of orange lilies. At least another two dozen lilies had the stems cut off and were lying on the bed. He kissed me gently and walked me to the bed, “I made sure you were kept busy for a while. You really thought Bree wouldn’t know where to put the nursery and kitchen items?” He sat me down and bent over, kissing me again. “Thank you Brandon, for everything.” “Harper, I will love you forever, and I promise to take care of you and our kids for the rest of my life.” He leaned over and pulled something out of a nightstand drawer, then dropped to one knee, my mouth popped open and my eyes widened. “Will you please marry me?” Of course tears started streaming down my face as I nodded my head and managed to squeak out, “Yes!” I pulled Brandon’s face to mine and kissed him until I couldn’t think straight anymore. I gasped when he opened the black box and there lay a thick white gold band with three large round diamonds on top. He pulled it out and gently placed it on the ring finger of my left hand. I laughed when the ring instantly fell to one side from the weight of it and pressed my lips to Brandon’s, pulling him onto the bed with me. His large frame curled around my body as he kissed me passionately and slowly made his way to my stomach, which he kissed tenderly and told Gummy Bear that Mommy and Daddy were getting married.

Oh, man, ‘the nursery,’ ” Dominic said, “what a hell-hole. If I had kids I’d give them the nicest room in the house.” “You do have kids,” his kid said. “Oh, yeah, well, right, you know what I mean.

Quivering fears, heart-tearing cares, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldlings' sports, Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glosing still, And Grief is forc'd to laugh against her will: Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows only real be. Fly from our country pastimes, fly, Sad troops of human misery. Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see The rich attendance of our poverty: Peace and a secure mind, Which all men seek, we only find. Abused mortals I did you know Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts grow, You'd scorn proud towers, And seek them in these bowers; Where winds, sometimes, our woods perhaps may shake, But blust'ring care could never tempest make, Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us, Saving of fountains that glide by us. Here's no fantastick mask, nor dance, But of our kids that frisk and prance; Nor wars are seen Unless upon the green Two harmless lambs are butting one the other, Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother And wounds are never found, Save what the plough-share gives the ground. Here are no false entrapping baits, To hasten too, too hasty Fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish, which worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, unless among The birds, for prize of their sweet song. We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass: And gold ne'er here appears, Save what the yellow Ceres bears, Blest silent groves, oh may ye be, For ever, mirth's best nursery ! May pure contents For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains. And peace still slumber by these purling fountains: Which we may, every year, Meet when we come a-fishing here.

Chad Gadya,” the Passover song he was taught by the rabbis in school, one he would sing to himself in the many nights during which sleep felt like something that only others could enjoy, a nursery rhyme that tells the story of a father who buys a young goat for two farthings, but then the kid—who the wise men said represented Israel in its purest, most innocent state—is killed by a cat, which is bitten by a dog, which is wounded by a stick, which is burned by fire, which is quenched by water, which is drunk by an ox, which is slaughtered by a man, in an unbroken chain of cause and effect, sin and penance, crime and punishment, that reaches all the way to heaven, where the Mighty Lord himself, the Holy One, Blessed be He, smites the angel of death, establishing the Kingdom of God,

Skipping story time. Letting your child watch TV or an iPad. Breaking from your child’s routine. Being so strict about your child’s routine. Daydreaming about life before baby. Spending money on yourself. Picking your baby up late from nursery school or day care. Reading a book that isn’t about parenting. Crying in front of your kid. Giving your baby nonorganic, non-grain-free, non-homemade snacks.

Often there’s no help in the home, but there are neighbors and friends and the people at nurseries and day-care centers. All of them help a child to learn to get along with all sorts of people and become more independent. Seeing people encourages him to make decisions for himself. When he sees his parents at his own special time of the day he enjoys them more than if they were underfoot all the time.

Joshua could hear the beginnings of hero-worship in the kid’s tone. Time to disabuse him of that notion right off the bat. “The washed-up drunk