Category: Children

At risk of your calling me fuddy-duddy,
I’ll ask you to sit up when you study.
I’ll excuse you, though, on one condition:
Show me how you got in that position!

by Ray Romine Thursday, June 3, 1954

Perched on the outer fringes
Of adult conversation,
Your ears are eager hinges;
Big eyes show concentration.
Feeling left out, maybe?
To me, you’re really in it.
When it’s conversation, baby,
You’re absorbing, every minute.

by Ray Romine Saturday, March 17, 1951

A boy will frequently give tongue
For money while he’s very young.
Don’t hesitate to give it to him:
Perhaps a little change is due him.

by Ray Romine Saturday, November 10, 1951

“We’ll get a puppy for them:
Won’t that please their eyes?
We’ll take them to the circus–“
We smile, and realize
That children often furnish
Convenient alibis!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 27, 1949

Don’t take this wrong, I beg of you–
It’s not your tots that bore me,
But the things I have to say and do
To make the dears adore me!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 20, 1949

Ice cream cones are dangerous toys
In the hands of little boys;
Our own can drool a sticky trickle
From taffy-apple or popsicle,
And he enjoys a natural flair
For getting butter in the hair.
He’s almost always in the mood
For flipping, at the table, food.
He plays fast games, or loops-the-loop
With plain and fancy brands of soup;
Groceries, he hasn’t heard,
Are eaten, never throwm or stirred.
But as I watch him, this defeats me:
With what he’s lost, he still out-eats me!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 11, 1951

Although I sometimes give him thunder
For my gray hairs when he is staging
Shenanegans, I can but wonder
Is it he–or am I aging??

by Ray Romine Sunday, October 8, 1950

Vacation’s tool–
Days mark and spot him.
Saved by the bell!–
The teacher’s got him.

by Ray Romine Saturday, May 13, 1950

Sis came in from playing
With mud upon her shoes;
Brother scattered popcorn;
And father dropped the News;

Baby spilled his bottie;
The kitten broke a vase;
The dog helped out by strewing
Bones about the place.

Advice for young homemakers?
Mother has this gem:
Learn picking things up faster
Than the family scatters them!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, January 15, 1952

Here is the the item that brings such pain
To a parent attempting to be just:
It isn’t so hard to make children refrain
As it is to expound the reason they must.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 9, 1947