Tea Time
A poem for toddler parents
The day has gotten away from me,
hours have slipped through my fingers like sand,
and the dinner that I’m trying to cook is about to burn on the stove
when my son comes running into the kitchen,
palm open, fingers stretched,
and he says, “Come on, mama, come!”
And for a brief moment, I think about how
the day has gotten away from me, and how
we are behind in this schedule that I have made up to keep us afloat,
and how the dinner is still in the middle of cooking on the stove,
but still, his little arms stay outstretched,
and his little palm opens and closes, and
his little voice says, “Come on, mama, come!”
And so I turn the burner off and say to hell with the schedule
and I go into the den, where I see that
he has placed two tiny teacups on the coffee table, and
he has placed two little spoons right next to them,
and he looks at me with his perfect little face
and says, “Sit, mama, sit. I made tea!”
And so, I sit, and he smiles and laughs.
And dinner is a little later than usual, but I don’t care,
because my son made me a cup of tea,
and I needed to drink it before it got cold.
If you enjoyed this piece, check out my poetry book, “the poetry of things: poems for the tough & tender moments of life” — now available here at Bottlecap Press.
