Library: Tales of a Tireless Mom

As Alex Shumway says farewell, be sure to check out all of her columns in the past few years on Dedham Patch. Here is a full library.

Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: Youth is Wasted on the Young

...and other perks of being a kid.

  While pleading with Quinn this weekend to please, PLEASE lay down for his afternoon nap, it occurred to me that I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat so that he may stay up and clean the kitchen instead.    Just think about it: kids wake up, play for a few hours, eat lunch and then GET TO SLEEP.  As an adult, I would sell my soul to the devil himself to take a nap after just four hours of work each day.  These children have no idea how good they have it…but why stop at naps? Let’s take a look some other perks of being a child and just how much they are taken for granted, shall we? And so, the next time one of the kids gives you the eye roll or pushes back on something that you are doing FOR them, just remind them that in a …

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: Nature Over Nurture

Why it's almost impossible to fight this losing battle.

  “QUINN ANDREW SHUMWAY, STOP SHOOTING YOUR SISTER!” If I had a nickel for each time I’ve yelled this in the past few months well, then, I certainly wouldn’t have to work for a living.  It seems as though every ten minutes I’m asking, telling, yelling, BEGGING Quinn to stop firing imaginary bullets at his sister/brother/mother/father/dog/neighbor/friend and once even the unthinkable… Grandmother. It was right after Christmas when my mother stopped by to say hello to the kids.  Quinn ran through the doorway, stopped, told my mother quite frankly, “Wait, I have to shoot you first,” took aim, fired, and ran away. So much for world peace. What is it about boys?  As soon as they can grasp things, they throw them.  Everything becomes a ball – a …

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: Doggone it, There's a New King in Town

Adjusting to life as a dog family. Woof!

  It was bound to happen sooner or later; I guess I just always thought it would be far into the future.  But when the time came, I was helpless to fight it and went out not in a blaze of glory but rather with a sad, quiet whimper. The Queen has been overthrown.  My family went and got themselves a dog. I’ve never had a dog.  We had a cat growing up and so when Andy and I were engaged, we thought it would be cute to get a couple of kittens (you know, now that we were, like, 24 and SO grown up and stuff).  Ripken and Smokey the Wonder Cat were with us for 12 and 15 years respectively and so whenever the kids initiated The Dog Conversation, the stock answer was always the same: “But we have cats; you wouldn’t want to make them sad, would you…

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: The De-Christmafying of the House

Putting one season away and making room for the New Year!

  This Sunday, I de-Christmafied my house. It’s an amazing phenomenon…come the first weekend in December I can’t wait to hang the twinkle lights but by the 26th, the mere thought of a pine needle makes me want to hurl. You must understand, I go big at Christmas.  BIG.  There is not a single room in the house that doesn’t boast at least one decoration, whether it’s as subtle as a candle in a window or as over-the-top as lit garlands on every flat surface available.  The smell of Hollyberry wafts throughout the house and Chez Shumway is sparkly for three weeks straight.  At the time, it’s magical. But once Christmas is over, I want it GONE. I set out to get it done quickly and went straight to work.  I made the conscious decision to hold off…

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: Making Sense of a Tragedy

Sometimes, all we have is love.

  As Americans, the events of Friday morning in Newtown broke our hearts but as parents, it terrified us to our very core. I had meetings in New York that day and therefore didn’t realize that any of it had happened until my train ride home. Seeing pictures of the families and grasping at the fragments of information trickling in, I had the same thought that every other parent did: how would those parents go on? Choking back tears (many of us on the train were doing the same thing), the faces of Ben, Georgia and Quinn flashed through my mind. Posts from friends called for gun control, more funding for mental illness, and an urge to hug their children. While I certainly agreed with the first two, the only one I felt like I had control over …

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: 100 Tales of this Mom in the Can...

As we reach the Tireless Mom's Centennial, a look back at the last two years.

  As I parked in front of my laptop to write this week’s column, something immediately struck me…and it was just a simple number. 100, to be exact. Hard to believe, but this is my 100th “Tireless Mom” column and since I’ve only missed one week since I began, it has become a kind of family diary for me.  Which means, my friends, that you poor souls have been made to sit through my literary scrapbook, week after week, reading about everything from piano lessons to potty training.  It has been fun, it has been therapeutic, and at times a little embarrassing.  Somehow, it has been almost two years. Although each Monday afternoon begins with the feeling of “Ugh, what am I possibly going to write about this week?” I always go to bed with another…

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom: "Say Cheese!"

Why taking the family Christmas Card photo brings out the Grinch in all of us.

  As soon as we’d decked the halls, trimmed our tree and had Chez Shumway looking like a little bit of the North Pole right here in Dedham, I grabbed my camera and set out to end all that festive cheer. That’s right, folks, there’s one sure fire way to deliver the ultimate Christmas buzzkill and you all know EXACTLY what it is. Take the dreaded Christmas card picture. Now, one of the things I love about this time of year is my daily trip to the mailbox and seeing it filled with cards instead of bills. I mean sure, our postal carriers certainly earn that Holiday Tip we give them during the month of December, but there’s something so exciting about tearing into the red and green envelopes to find out what your college roommate’s kids look …

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Tales of a Tireless Mom

Tales of a Tireless Mom #98: For Nathan

Learning a lesson about changing the world from a Stoughton grandmother and a 7-year old girl.

“Think Globally, Act Locally.” We’ve all heard this statement and probably even said it ourselves, but have you ever stopped to think about just exactly what it means? It’s saying that in order to change the world you have to start somewhere . . . and that somewhere may as well be your own backyard. Because of the big heart of my 7-year-old daughter Georgia, I learned this lesson firsthand. Jean Fox is a friend of a friend and lives in nearby Stoughton. When her grandson Nathan was born three years ago to a heroin-addicted mother, Jean knew what she had to do. She immediately filed for emergency guardianship to keep Nathan out of the Foster Care system and since that day has given everything to this little boy. Once an extremely sick baby…

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