Doing Dishes

Because we are the only family left
in North America
without an automatic dishwasher
I get to spend time with my precious children
Every night after supper

This is where
I learn things about their day
I am taken back to teen-age angst
The dilemma's of an on-again-off-again romance
I hear about the elementary woes
of far too-strict principals,
or who got new clothes.
I hear who was suspended
or about a guy named Ipod
We discuss things like music
relationships, God

Sometimes we are just silly
Or I might regale
their compliant ears
with ancient tales
of when their mother was young
and how five plates isn't so bad
or six on weekends
when Dad is home.
because when I was a kid
there were twelve plates to dry
and stacks of dishes at least a mile high
we walked to school and back
(up-hill both ways;)
and they wonder why anyone
called them the 'good old days'
We argue about the merits of cell phones or facebook
and just to annoy me, my daughter says the e-book
should replace all the bother and clutter of volumes
that we read once then store on a shelf, by the dozen
but mom says you can't smell the face of a screen
and someday she is not going to think like seventeen.
They give me all the answers to those things I should know
I laugh and listen; because life will show
them soon enough, it does not come with a patent
and someday,Lord willing, they will think like a parent
so I am content to hear their wit and their wishes
in time well-spent
while we do dishes.

Janet

I have been offered dish-washers, but right now
I decline those offers. My kids don't know it yet,
but we are not merely doing dishes. We are making memories.
I grew up in a large family and have done miles of dishes., with ever-so-many memories attached.