if i ran a Parenting School

there are many, many things that i would have in the curriculum:
Manners 101
Kindness 102
Honesty 103
How To Keep All The Things Clean 104
Communicating with Tiny Humans 101
How to Take a Deep Breath 405
Learning to Live without Naps 743
you get the gist. . . 

i was reminded of one would-be-class earlier this week. 
Prepping Class Projects 101
i am not yet sure if this should be a single class, or an entire course. 
suffice it to say, this mom could at least benefit from a workshop on "Shoebox Decorating."
because either bern or i find ourselves doing this at least twice a year. 
and each time i am reminded that, though i can wrap a lovely gift for the holidays, there are nuances to shoeboxes that i just can't conquer. 

this week, we needed to prep a box for benny's class, and i was excited to see that we actually had a few tucked away in our closets. 
(new parent? start saving these now.)
and then i was instantly saddened when i realized that ALL of them had attached lids. 
i am sure this is a huge improvement for people working in the shoe industry, as the battle to keep lids on all the boxes must be ongoing. 
however, for me, it just resulted in this: 

and some of this. 

and then negotiating the proper amount of paper to cover the whole box, not be saggy, and still not be too tight for the box to actually close. 
the answer, without fail, to each dilemma? 

apply.

more.

tape.

at long last, i managed to assemble a somewhat respectable product. 

then it was time for benny to decorate. 

he was supposed to decorate the outside of the box, without putting his name on it, so that kids in the class could guess whose it was. 

then fill it with little treasures for Show & Tell. 

these are benny's favorite things. 

as of 7:00pm on tuesday, august 26, 2014. 

pokemon.

pokemon.

those are three swords in black, green and red. (it's upside down for the top.)

and...5 ice cream cones. 

the kid really does love his ice cream. 

on the side, he drew our family. 

apparently i was having a really bad hair day. 

when i asked him if was going to draw our pup, Rocky, he sat quietly for a moment. 

then he declined. 

he thought that would be too complicated. 

so he threw in another ice cream cone for good merit. 

our little beasts in the wilds

oh. 

hey. 

so, apparently, i have a blog. 

i seem to have forgotten that. 

the good news is, i start classes next week, so we should really be on the up and up for the next few years...

anyway. 

it seems as though i went in here a month or so ago and uploaded some photos. 

and then never looked back. 

so, here are some old photos. . . 

in July, we took a little "staycation" and had some fun in the Columbus area. 

early in the week, we also went out to The Wilds and did an open-air tour. 

it was a really great time and the boys had a blast!

look at that mug. 

The Wilds is a conservation center in Ohio, and the tour started out looking a lot like this. 

and this. 

and, when we came upon our first animals. . . this. 

fortunately, the rest of them that day turned to face in our direction. 

there were occasional stops where we were able to get out and explore. 

and even feed the animals. :) 

and, at one point, ben made this face. 
i'm not sure what this particular face is. 
angry? debonair? 
but here you have it. 

me, my grey hair, and the boys. 
ben still looks uncertain about everything. 
perhaps it was the tiger behind us. 

again. 
ben. 
oh, ben.
also: important life updates. . . 
ben, formerly known has benny, has asked to be called ben moving forward. 


that's better. 
this is the smile we usually see. 

too. much. 
love them. 

this was benny's favorite stop. :)
ok. 
for real. 
i just typed "benny." 
ugh. 
this is going to take a while. 

i love some sassy signage. 

they gave us a little guide to keep track of all the animals we saw. 
clearly, anth took the wheel on this one. 

this gem came UP to the bus. 
and started pecking (do ostriches peck?) at the bolts on the outside of the bus. 
neat. 

the giraffe wasn't cooperating. 

while we were off having our family adventure, rocky was off having. . . his own. 
so we picked up our very sleepy, and slightly high, puppy on the way home. 

more summer antics to come. . .

in, like, november. 

grammar lessons from benjamin

i absolutely love the fact that both of my boys are still willing to hold my hand in public. 
i almost hesitate to write this, just in case it jinxes me. 
but, to date, neither of them has fully realized what an embarrassment i am. 

the one time i consistently struggle to snag benny's hand is on the way in or out of his daycare facility. 
his classroom is at the end of a long hallway, and he loves to run/skip/you-name-it down that hallway. 
anything but walk. 

on wednesday morning, he slowed down as we were getting closer to his room. 
so i gave it a whirl and asked, "hey benny. can i hold your hand?"
he picked up his pace, opened the door to his room, and didn't even look at me as he responded, "nope. and i think you mean 'may,' not 'can.'"

my 6th grade English teacher, Mrs. Kendall, would have been proud. 
. . .of ben. 

Carversations with Benny

benny has many awesome moments in the car.
usually it is when he is waxing philosophical on some topic or another.

today?
god.
it was a nice light way to start the morning.

actually, the conversation started more as a statement.
"hey, mom?"
"yeah?"
"did you know god has no hands?"
"um. no. how do you know that?"
as it turns out, one of his classmates had told him this.

we paused for a moment.
and i asked if he thought god might have feet.
"MOM. of course...how else would he walk around in outer space?"
apparently benny's version of god defies the laws of gravity.
and walks around the galaxy.
handless.

this of course led to benny asking what god really looks like.
i told him that many people had many different ideas about that.
which, of course, was a totally useless answer in benny's eyes.
silence.
then, "mom! you know how you can get an answer, right?"
"for this one, not really."
"MOM."
(he tends to overemphasize my name when he finds me to be useless.)

". . . just Google it. they'll know."

a lesson in democracy: puppy naming

for years, we told the boys that they could have a dog if we lived closer to work. 

we moved last summer. 

and now find ourselves living closer to work. 

the boys reminded us we have been overdue on a certain promise. 

we considered the current state of our lives. . . 

the boys have been potty trained and sleeping through the night for years. 

why embrace this sense of stability?

so. . . 

we are getting a puppy. 

more specifically, we are bringing home a puppy this friday.

we are pretty darn excited. 

not surprisingly, one of the biggest topics floating around the Savvy house has been "what shall we name the puppy?"

in an effort not to make this a boring conversation, all four of us wanted/liked different names. 

even different kinds of names. 

this was becoming problematic. 

until, of course, bernie pulled out his BA in Political Science and guided us through a multi-layered voting process. 

at the dinner table. 

here's what that looked like. . . 

ROUND 1: 

everyone put forward their suggestions for names. 

bernie wrote a master list of said names. 

here it is: 

in case you can't read the awesome green ink we used for this process, here are some highlights: 

bernie and I suggested some typical names: Tucker, Parker, Oscar, Obi

"Windmaker 626" - Ben

"Rudy, but only if he has a pink or red nose" - Ben

"Sonic, Link, Tails" - Anth

"Ketchup Wonder" - Ben

"Paul" - i have no idea. 

"Hairy Potter" - Anth

"Syrup Guy" - Ben

"Astin/Sanford" - it appears that Bernie got bored around #43

ROUND 2

after we all felt that we had added our potential names to the list, Bernie read through each name and we voted if it was one we would seriously consider. 

those are the tally marks on the long name list. 

shockingly, not many of the names received more than one vote. . . 

ROUND 3 

we moved forward with the ones that had 3 or 4 votes. 

bernie made ballots: 

of course, before i could properly cast my votes, i had to test out the names i was considering: 

(turns out it is "Obi Wan" and not "Obie Wan." oops)

but, then, the votes were in: 

ROUND 4: 

by a final vote of hands, we landed on Rocky. 

now, i imagine some people will think this little pup of ours is named after a certain boxer. 

not true. 

rocky was actually anthony's suggestion. 

becuase he has a teddy bear named Rocky.

it was given to him when he was just days old by a friend of the family, Ankita Rakhe, and her mom. 

their name isn't actually pronounced "rocky," but...details.

so, almost 8 years later, we have a dog, named after a bear, named after a friend in Northern California. 

even better?

benny panicked about a week after we selected the name. 

he realized that, because of a mark on the dog's back, he really wanted to call him Bolt. 

which, as you can see, was not even on the final ballot. 

we all compromised and agreed that our new family member could be Rocky B. Savarese. 

forever making him seem like he was named after Rocky Balboa. 

so, friends, meet our not-like-the-boxer Boston Terrier, Rocky: 

5 weeks

8 weeks

i'm certain there will be more posts to come as we all learn to take care of him together. . . 

fail photo: buckeye salutations

in order for this particular post to make sense, please allow me to first provide a bit of context. 

if you are not familiar with the culture around Ohio State football, you may not recognize the gestures i am trying to capture below. 

but, one of the many Buckeye traditions is that sections of the stadium will chant the letters O-H-I-O, while that entire section of the stadium throws up their arms in the shape of that letter. 

simple, yet quite effective in person. 

as a spin-off, it is common for folks to take pictures with four people/3 people and a conveniently shaped object to make a human O-H-I-O. 

see one of our family photos from 2011:

there is an entire page on the OSU website dedicated to this phenomenon. 

here is a random one including complete strangers that i enjoy:

anyway. 

you get the point. 

so. . . when we were at the recent Buckeye Kickoff event in August, and we were practicing our cheers along with 7,000 first-year-students, i was excited to capture benny in the act, as i thought it would be a cute little 4-part-series to use somewhere in the house. 

and, cute it very well could have been. 

if i had not, apparently, gotten distracted somewhere along the way. . .

O:

H:
 

I:

and. . . end scene. 
apparently, i forgot that there are 4 letters in "Ohio."
i find this particularly amusing, because i JUST came across this image and shared it with a friend today: 

anyway. 
before someone points out the SUPER obvious. . . 
i know that if i really wanted to cheat and repeat the "O," i totally could. 

but that would be kind of obvious. 
and would further emphasize my awesomeness.

so, instead, i have left myself with a lovely 3-shot series of benny. 

saying, "O, Hi."

so, friends. . .

hello. 

from benny. 

FYI: i'm no fun

as it turns out, i, apparently, am no fun. 
the source of this data? 
mr. benjamin savarese. 

the topic of conversation that spurred this fun fact? 
how to decorate the house for halloween. 

this, per usual, happened in the drive on the way in to work. 
we passed a house that had been "TP'd."
(although, i must say, back in the day we were not so bold as to write "UAGS"...which i imagine stands for Upper Arlington Girls Soccer, or something to that effect...ON THE LAWN when we did such things. we thought we were, somehow, anonymous.)
anyway, we passed a corner house with lovely tall trees dripping in toilet paper. 
benny assessed their work. 
and promptly asked if we, too, could dress our house as a mummy for halloween. 

i, of course, declined. 
thus making me "no fun."

so, thank you, local teenagers, for helping my children find new ways to find me boring and utterly unreasonable. 
greatly appreciated. 

Benny HGTV - fail photo

(remember when i used to do "fail photos?" oops.)

so far this week, benny has helped us see old halloween costumes as potential home decor items.
today, benny shows us that there is no need to keep the decor just to the home.
why not, say, on the car ride to daycare, take advantage of the halloween stickers still sitting in your bag of treats from yesterday's fun?
there are entire windows back there just waiting for a little bit of this action:

note: no bennys were harmed as a result of this design choice.
they were, however, highly confused as to why mommy and daddy were not nearly as excited about the decor as they were.

fail photo 55 - sleep talking

today i have been wandering about campus, playing host to a lovely person who is interviewing to serve as a Hall Director here at OSU next year.
mainly, this looks like me walking her around to interviews, making sure she gets fed, and making lots of small talk along the way.
and trying to give people the "5 minute warning" in the least awkward way possible.

in the middle of this, i had a few minutes to stop and check email.
an email from ben's classroom caught my eye.
whenever i see an email from benny's daycare teachers, i check that first.
typically, ben has injured himself.

today, that was not the case. . .

i love these little gems (about our little gem) from school.
apparently benny has not only been blessed with my sometimes feisty spirit, but also my love of a little taskiness.

fail photo 53 - when i grow up part 2

remember yesterday?
(when all your troubles seems so far away...? how you need a place to hide way....)
anyway.
yesterday.
i shared the tale of benny's "careers" classroom rubric last month.
and walking in to find a lovely little statement about how he wants to be a doctor.
(which makes me wonder if he overheard a Med Center kiddo talking first, as he has NEVER mentioned the medical field before.)
he usually aspires to be things like iron man.
anyway, here is the "career aspiration" that was not posted on the wall.
this was in his mailbox:



this sounded a WHOLE lot more like the benjamin i know.
though i was slightly confused by what exactly "pirate snacks" were.
and why they were good enough to drive his career choice.

until.
we.
went.
to.
target.
the very same day.
and we got near the snack aisle.
and my sweet 4-year-old belted out, "Mommy! let's get some booty! i want booty!!!!"

he was pointing to these:

Pirate's Booty truly is a tasty snack.

yum.

however, i am now convinced that there is some sarcastic person on staff there, giggling at the public mortification they are causing parents-in-the-snack-aisle everywhere.

(perhaps this is the same individual who named the Toy Story character "Woody.")

now i'm bummed that my field doesn't come with a designated snack.

(though some would argue it might be pizza based on the volumes served in the residence halls.)

however, bern and i will now work to get ben involved in the proper activities to support his life goal of becoming a Pirate Doctor.

when i grow up - part one

recently, benny's classroom has been exploring the concept of careers.

this mainly stemmed from the kids asking what exactly it was that their parents were doing all day.

the teachers have done a cute series exploring the careers of some of the classroom's parents, which evolved into the kids naming some careers of their own.

here is the career inspiration that benny has hanging on the wall:

totally respectable/commendable/responsible.

lofty.

ambitious.

all those things.

right?

right.

come back tomorrow to see the OTHER career choice benny explored on paper #2.

hot mess on aisle 4

i love Clinique Bonus Time.
(yes, so much that i honor it with proper capitalization)
i literally stalk it on the clinique website.
i have essentially collected a lifetime supply of miniature mascaras and eyeshadows via Bonus Time, in exchange for buying products i already needed anyway.
it's a general win-win.


it is currently Bonus Time at our local Macy's stores.
yay!
on the way home from work recently, i grabbed benny and ran into what is locally known as the "blue Macy's."
this is because it is a stand-alone macy's in the middle of a local shopping center.
and because it is blue.
i particularly like this one because it is not attached to a mall.
thus, no onslaught of people.
and also, no temptation.
also, also...no benny begging me for Auntie Anne's cinnamon sticks.

anyway.
at the heart of the Blue Macy's is the Clinique counter.
and, across the aisle from that is the Fossil section.
if i didn't have ben with me, i could probably kill a good 30-35 minutes wandering around this 400 square feet of space.
i was in the middle of doing just that, starting first at the Fossil and working my way slowly toward Clinique.
(i mean, there were people in line at the Clinique counter. why crowd them?)
i was busy exploring the inner pockets and flaps of some new bag or another when benny suddenly darted away from me and into the tiled aisle.

"benny, come back here with mommy!"
"no, mom! there's music!"
at this point, benny put his arms straight out at his sides and began sporadically spinning in circles and swinging his hips back and forth.
picture a helicopter.
with something terribly broken inside of it.
by this time, ben had attracted the attention of the women at the Clinique counter.
i was doing my best version of a sound-serious-enough-to-get-my-kid-back-over-here-but-not-TOO-serious voice to coax benny back to my side.
he completed a few more spins back in my direction, topping it off with a semi-Heisman stance.

then he put his hands on his hips, and looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
"THAT is how you ninja dance."

this is why i don't delegate

so. 
i've haven't been posting much these days. 
life has gotten more than the usual busy. 


i have some great stories to tell. 
unfortunately, they only currently exist inside my head. 
and in strange bullets in my phone. 
i had put benny in charge of things a while back. . .

but it seems he never quite figured things out all the way.
guess i'll be back soon.
to discuss things like basketball and ninja-dancing at Macy's.
(yes, you read that correctly)


P.S. they grow up way too fast. 

fail photo friday #51 - it's been too long

i walked into benny's classroom this morning.

and saw this:

i felt like, maybe, you needed to see it, too.

you.
are.
welcome.