Felix and Oscar

Dear viewers:

Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe my children come from the same gene pool – they are total opposites. If you were to look at their bedrooms you’d think to yourself, there is no way these two people are related, and being raised in the same house.

My four year old son is a bit of a neat freak. His room is clean and orderly. We recently bought him “big boy” bedroom furniture that includes lots of drawers for him to store things. He was so excited to put all his things away in their designated drawers. He will not go to sleep until everything is in its proper place. He likes to help me clean and do laundry. He’s a TYPE A all the way…busy-body to the Nth degree. That’s all well and good, but his intensity is a lot to take sometimes.

Then there’s his big sister. You need a hazmat suit to enter her room. There are Barbies and stuffed animals everywhere, play make-up, underwear, socks and various candy wrappers strewn all over the place. My blood pressure goes up as soon as I open the door. She “collects” things. “Hoards” may be a more appropriate word. We nag her to clean her room day in and day out. I have purchased every form of bin and box to help her stay organized. It hasn’t helped. I ask her how she can stand to live like that. Her response: “I like my little world”. She’s TYPE B with a capital B. The up side is that she’s a very easy person to be around – calm and gentle. Not much bothers her.

I guess the fact they are so different is a good thing. They compliment each other. For every Yin there’s a Yang… for every Felix there’s an Oscar.

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

Mea Culpa!

I know, I know, I know, I am totally lame. Forgive me readers, for I have slacked. It’s been four or five months since my last blog. I agree, that’s just plain ridiculous.

Yes, I’ve been busy (who hasn’t), but lack of time management skills isn’t my only excuse. Something happened to my brain over the summer. I got out of my regular routine and just couldn’t seem to remember stuff. I’d be at the pool with the kids and something funny would happen, and I’d think to myself, “I should blog about that tomorrow”. But by the next day I would forget all about it. POOF! Out of my head. This forgetfulness has become a regular occurrence. Time and time again I’ll walk into a room and stand there dumbfounded as to what the heck I went in there for. My husband will just look at me and say “the POOF monster has struck again!” I’m 41 going on 91.

Note to self: no more mental notes. Now I write everything down…and I mean EVERYTHING. I wrote a note to myself to write this blog. It said: “remember to write about how you can’t remember”.

Gotta run…I have this sinking feeling there’s something I’m supposed to be doing – let me check my notes.

Until next time,
Mindy Basara

What’s so funny?

Dear Viewers,

What is it about potty humor that amuses the male gender?  Apparently this starts at a young age. Over the weekend, I was at a birthday party, in the presence of a group of four year old boys.  They were yucking it up pretty good, and I was dying to know what they were talking about that was so funny – so I eavesdropped, of course.  What I heard was…”blah, blah, blah…POOPY BUTT (hysterical laughter)…yada, yada, yada…POOPY HEAD (more hysterical laughter)” 

What is the deal?  I have never heard my daughter and her friends use the word “poopy”, and they certainly don’t find it amusing.   If  I hear my little boy use that kind of language, naturally I correct him. So does my husband, which I find ironic considering he’s a 38 year old man who still thinks farting is funny.  I can only hope my son grows out of it his penchant for potty humor, but being that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – perhaps that’s wishful thinking!

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

The pool, the pool, the pool is cool

Dear Viewers,

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend. We spent the past few sweltering days at our neighborhood pool. To say the kids have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the pool is an understatement.  My daughter has been sleeping in her bathing suit in anticipation, and both kids have been spontaneously chanting “the pool, the pool, the pool is cool.”

The pool is becoming more relaxing for me and my husband now that my daughter can swim independently. That leaves just one kid we have to watch like a hawk – and he enjoys the playground at the pool as much as the pool itself which involves less activity on our part.  We can “park it” on a bench and watch.

It’s really gratifying to see them enjoying themselves so much, playing with friends – running, spashing, laughing – basking in the glow of childhood summertime.  I want to explain to them – soak it up. This kind of innocence doesn’t last forever.  Treasure it.

And the best part of the pool comes at the end of the day. Once we get home, they are so exhausted they go to bed willingly, almost thankfully, and go right to sleep – no doubt thinking about the fun that lies ahead the next day.  I go to sleep knowing one day they will think back on their summers at the pool and smile.

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

 

 

 

 

For the love of PJ’s

Dear Viewers,

My almost-four-year-old has a Hugh Hefner-like obsession with wearing pajamas.  The minute he comes home from whatever – preschool, running errands –  he announces “mommy – I’m puttin’ on my pj’s'” and hurries up to his room.  He tries on several pairs until he finds just the right ones for his particular mood.  On his moodier days he’ll change his pj’s several times.  Every now and again he’ll add slippers to the ensemble.

If he had his druthers he’d wear pajamas 24-7, but we insist that he put on regular clothes to go to school or the park, etc.  He became very angry the other day when we were at the park and he noticed another boy about his age, wearing – you guessed it – pj’s! At the park!  I heard about it for hours.

Perhaps this is a thing with three or four year old boys. My husband and I have started noticing little boys in their pajamas everywhere – the grocery store, the ice-cream parlor, the mall.  In the past I might have found it odd. Now I totally get it. Pick your fights, right?

I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to be comfortable. Who doesn’t love pajamas? And if you can’t wear them round-the-clock when you’re three, when can you? 103 I guess 🙂

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

Thanks Mom

Dear Viewers,

Hope all you fellow moms had a wonderful Mother’s Day. I did. Very low key, just the way I like it: went out for breakfast, paid a visit to the Rawlings Conservatory (kids loved it), and then hubby made my favorite dinner. 

I’ll see my mom in  few days – she’s coming for a visit.  The older I get, the more I realize how much of my life I owe to her.  The greatest gift she ever gave to me was believing in me…the confidence that I could do whatever I wanted with my life.  She drummed it into my head. “You can be anything you want to be,” she said over and over again. “All you have to do is try.”  She believed that with all her heart, and over time – so did I.  I became interested in broadcasting at a young age – set my sights on that as a career, and never looked back.

Every once in a while someone will say to me…wow, you’re lucky that you were able to fulfill your dreams of becoming a newscaster.  It wasn’t luck… it was her.

Thanks mom. I love you.

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

Pain on the plane

Dear Viewers,

Had a great Spring Break this year – did a family vacation to Florida…visiting my brother and his brood in Tampa…a day at Disney World. Good times. Everything went remarkably well except for one little problem on the plane ride there: my five-year-old daughter threw up all over the place.

She’s always been prone to motion sickness – long car rides frequently include “incidents”. But she’s flown before and never had a problem.  I didn’t  give her dramamine because it knocks her out and we had a full day ahead of us. So, we got on the plane and I crossed my fingers.  She sat in the window seat in the row ahead of me with her father (I swear I didn’t do that on purpose…uh…really).  All was well until the rocky descent.

When the plane started bobbing up and down I broke out in a cold sweat.  This can’t be good. Then I saw my husband frantically searching through the seat pockets – presumably searching for a barf bag. There was none.  The nex thing I know, he scooped her up like a football and started towards the bathroom. I could tell by the look on her face she wasn’t going to make it.  The poor girl tossed her cookies all over the floor of the plane – and at least one passenger.  I felt terrible…for the unsuspecting passenger, the flight crew, and of course for her. She was so embarrassed.  I wish I could have traded places with her.

The positive part about the whole experience was how kind everyone was.  The nice woman “in the line of fire” told me to stop apologizing – she has kids too. She’s been there.  That made us feel so much better – so thank you, nice lady.

The plane ride home went much better.  It was the end of the day, so I gave her the dramamine, and she slept the whole flight (sitting next to me this time). The other plane ride was long forgotten – I’m sure dreams of Disney danced in her head.

Until next time,

Mindy Basara

Spring Switcheroo

Dear Viewers,

Have you switched out all your Winter stuff for Spring/Summer?  This was my big project last weekend.  I live in an old house and have limited closet space, so half my wardrobe resides in the attic. Schlepping my things up and down the steep attic steps is time consuming enough, but then once I’m finished with my things, the real work begins…I tackle the kids’ closets. 

  What slows me up is I become paralyzed by sentiment. This might sound odd, but I just love handling my kids’ clothes… even love doing their laundry, folding it, and putting it away. So as I went through their closets, I would take a shirt or pair of pants off the hangar – something that no longer fits, or is out of season – I would look at it awhile, fold it gently, put it in a pile to give to a friend or Goodwill.  I do this slowly, with a twinge of sadness, knowing they will never be this size again. 

 Every once in a while as I’m rooting around the attic I’ll come across a box of baby clothes that for some reason never made it to the donation pile.  I could spend hours looking through that box….a onesie that says Baby’s First Christmas…a bib that says “I love Daddy”, with a stain of pureed something-or-other across the front.  Sounds weird, but it makes me happy and sad at the same time.

 I wonder if I’ll always feel this way about their “stuff”. Now I understand why the closet in my old bedroom at home is filled with things like ice skating outfits and Girlscout uniforms.  They’re more than just articles of clothing, they’re a tangible piece of the past.

 Until next time,

 Mindy Basara

Oops I. Forgot

Dear Viewers,

I think we’re going to re-name my daughter Oops I. Forgot.  Do you have a kid like this? She can’t remember the most basic of things to save her life. It is driving my husband and I crazy (the husband especially).   I admit, I’m absent minded too. If I don’t write it down, I’m likely to forget as well. But I’m old. What’s her excuse?

We have to tell her things over and over again, “don’t forget to make your bed, brush your teeth, put away your things.”  Five minutes later, she’s still in her room staring out the window. “Did you do it?”, we ask. “Oops. I forgot” is the likely response.  She also routinely walks out the door  in the morning without her bookbag and regularly leaves her thermos in her cubby at school. Again, “oops, I forgot”, is the mantra.

Being that their father is the one who has to get them ready in the morning, this time-consuming forgetfulness is driving him bananas. Fortunately our son’s head isn’t quite as much in the clouds, and even though he’s two years younger seems to get done what he needs to do in a timely fashion.     

We are trying to figure out what to do to break her of her air-headedness.  Any ideas? 

Until nex time,

Mindy Basara

Cool stuff

Dear Viewers,

Kids these days have the coolest stuff –  stuff I could only have dreamed of when I was a child.  Have you heard of chalkboard paint? It rocks.  You just paint it on the wall – and whammo! Instant chalkboard. We recently revamped our playroom/family room, so I decided to give it a try. It was very easy to use…I did two coats on an area about 16 square feet. The kids just love it. They play school all the time. (I usually get stuck being the student, and boy are they tough teachers! ) I ordered mine from a Sherwin Williams store, but there are other retailers on-line as well. 

I couldn’t stop with the chalkboard paint, and decided to give magnetic paint a whirl too. I painted an area in the playroom- also about 16 square feet – so the kids can display their artwork (instead of hanging it on the frig).  It’s an oil-based paint so the fumes are kind of strong, and it seems to splatter more. But after two coats it holds the magnets pretty well.  I might do a third coat when I feel up to dealing with it.

Below is a picture of my daughter at the chalk board. Maybe teaching is in her future?

Let me know if you give it a try.

Until next time,

Mindy Basara