diving right in

it is once again Mirror Lake Jump Night here at Ohio State.
on my end, this night involves being on campus, usually from about 10pm to 1 or 2am, to help support my staff who working to keep our students safe.
more specifically, it involves me hoping that all of our students come out of the experience safe and sound.
i wrote about this in more detail last year on the night after the jump. 

perhaps, after a night of observing, i will have more to add to this list tomorrow.
perhaps not.
when anth asked me to remind him what "jump night" was again today, i did. 
he asked, "don't they all know that that's just kind of gross? and could make them sick?"
(the answer? i assume yes. but most college students are not in the business of taking advice from 6-year-olds.)

anyway, on a night that is filled with a full spectrum of choices made by our students, i am choosing to share a video of one particular student who currently has my heart.
anth.
one of the lovely RAs i have worked with at OSU is Allison Gering.
she is currently in a class that has tasked her with meeting with a K-2nd(ish) grade student to do reading assessments.
we offered to share anth for the cause, and he has had fun doing his last two "tests" with her.
he has done really well.
too well, actually.
to the point that Allison left our house a looking a tad bit stressed because she didn't bring books that were hard enough.
she has her last appointment with anth tomorrow morning, and i told her i would see if i could find some reading materials that were more challenging for him.
i quickly realized that most of the books in his room were ones that he was now able to read.
so i grabbed the hardest one i could find.

but first, like the nerd that i am totally comfortable being, i asked him to wait while i got out my phone to record.
if he was going to be able to read this particular book, i wanted to be able to catch it on film.
so, here you go.

i don't think i did much to help allison, but i am so proud of my little man.

the finger point is in their DNA

ladies and gentlemen, i offer you video evidence.
both in action, and straight from ben's mouth, here is official proof that little men come standard issue with the ever classic point-my-fingers-in-varying-directions dance move.

as such, i feel it is necessary to offer the following statement:

Dear various men who i have danced with who have found it appropriate to execute this move in public,

i forgive you.
you clearly can't help yourselves.
(but please take it under advisement that this is a curable condition.)

love,
krystyne

fail video: how little buckeyes avoid naptime

this is benjamin.

at naptime.

note: he is not napping.

not even close.

he is, however, attempting to sing I Wanna Go Back, an Ohio State Marching Band classic.

(note: you really have to turn the volume up on this one to catch the beginning.)

i kind of love that ben already knows that, if you get stuck on the exact lyrics, shouting "O-H!" is a good bet.  

in this case, the O-Hs became increasingly louder.

and, because all good buckeyes are programmed to respond with a requisite "I-O!," i did eventually go into his room.

to lovingly tell him I-O and to go to sleep.

so he thinks he can dance...

the boys simply could not get enough of their new friend alex.

so, we met up with alex, et al, and some other fun new faces on sunday evening.

specifically, we met up for Sundays at Scioto...a fun little weekly music event hosted by the Dublin Arts Council. 

it was latin jazz/salsa week.

and ben was ready to impress his new friend.

this is what alex saw...



i asked him to annunciate...

and, in rare form, he did.
a LOT.

my favorite?
Q.
hands down.

it was only a matter of time...

before someone taught our little "benny" this song...

ha. ha. hahahaha. ha.

Off The Lake's musical stylings reach well beyond the traditional broadway stage.

this little ditty was taken (on my phone, per usual) at their mini-cabaret on Wednesday night.

this event is a little treat that the members allow themselves in the days between their two performance weekends, and is hosted by and for current members instead of the general public.

and, as evidenced here, tends to have moments of sheer hilarity...

(why, yes, the gent on the right, Eric Neunschwander, is playing a melodica.)

(and, yes, i needed to ask OTL member Lauren Decker what exactly he was playing.)

(and, yes, Eric. you are welcome.)

all of this to say, here's to a wonderful closing weekend for the 2010-2011 OTLers!

here's to a great OTLumni night tomorrow! (coined by Brandon Boring...)

so! much! love!

beautiful. . . in every single way

we use U-Verse in the savvy abode. 
in the past three weeks, our service has gone out 4 times. 
it takes our access to TV, DVR, and the internet with it. 
we were somewhere in the midst of round 4 of this, and our only tech-ish connection to the outside world was through my phone's 3G connection. 


i came across two things, a la Kelly Ignatoski, that i thought were worth sharing. 


the first was this little gem that I found on her FB wall. 
it's a video of a collaboration between the Columbus Gay Men's Chorus and the Columbus Children's Choir in support of the Trevor Project and the It Gets Better Campaign. 
i played it for the boys while we were reading our bedtime books. 
they were both sitting in my lap in the rocker in benny's room. 
benjamin, being his usual patient self...and knowing how to operate my iPhone...pushed the button at the top of my phone to shut it off and informed us, "dat song is too wong." 


when it was anth's time for bed, he asked me about the song. 
he wanted to know if it was meant just for "pretty people."
i informed him it wasn't, and a little bit more about the intention behind it, and he asked if we could watch it again so he could "listen harder."
ugh. 
i love him. 


later, i was on kelly's blog, kelarious, catching up on a few recent posts. 
two of them centered on children's books. 
which i know she has a little penchant for, from several giggling trips to the kids' section of Barnes and Noble together in our early Hall Director years. 
in this post, she outlines a few of her go-to favorite books for gifts. 
recently, benny received Dooby Dooby Moo and Click, Clack Moo: Cows that Type from Kelly for his 3rd birthday. 








actually, all the Savvys received a little something compliments of a kelly care package. 

bernie was recognized for graduating, benny for his bday, and anth for just being anth. 
even i got a little something fun in recognition of having my life back. 

kelly is familiar with my nerdiness.

and knows that i am a complete sucker for chex mix. 

she was also my crafting partner-in-crime before she moved up to Madison. 

the button is from a craft shop...commenting on the current political issues in her state. 

here is benjamin being excited about his new book. 
:) 

and here is book #1 being employed at nap time. 

it took two books to do the trick...

benny can now be heard at night through his bedroom door, quietly dooby-mooing to himself. 
it's both endearing and hilarious. 
so, thanks kel. 


she also highlighted a website on her blog. 
it was created by James Patterson to encourage wee ones to become life-long readers. 
and, being passionate about this myself, i couldn't help but re-post for anyone interested...
check it out...





too lazy to read about reading? 
(slacker)


here are a few fun videos of some of kelly's, and now the boys', favorites... 
click clack moo: cows that type 
diary of a worm.
dooby dooby moo 
duck for president 

proud mommy moment #2

on Monday night we had gone upstairs to start our usual bedtime routine.

i received a call and left the boys playing in anth's room for a few minutes to take it.

when i came back, i heard them in benny's room.

this is what i found.

apparently, they started their version (sans jammies and tooth-brushing) of bedtime without me.

some things are just too good not to share.

this book is one of benny's new favorites, compliments of the ever-thoughtful Yvette. :)

the last day of "the 2's"

as benny's third birthday quickly approaches (tomorrow!), mom and dad have been busy discussing potential gifts, hitting stores, and doing a little shopping online. 

but my brain just keeps coming back to this, which causes me to question the need for presents...

*note: for those of you who believe for .83 seconds we would pass on giving benny birthday gifts, you are just plain silly.

or mean.

i'll let you categorize yourself on this one.

his "flagship" gift this year will be Magnatiles.

he has fallen in love with these at daycare.

and i have to admit, they are pretty fabulous.

for our tiny-yet-determined architect, they stick together better than blocks.

but, they also provide a higher level of satisfaction than Legos for the kid who likes to be able to quickly destroy what he just built.

and, yes, both the architect and demolition crew are benny.

Baking Soda Incident Act II

yes, friends, benny was planning on baking his big brother some cookies.

apparently, on my living room floor.

he was also planning to vacuum up the mess with a dustbuster.

the best laid schemes...

(to his credit, at least he got the ingredients right...)

i heart homework 4 - weather as food

while this did not actually happen on thursday, the sentiment expressed in anth's homework is correct. 

things happening in this drawing: 

- the orange guy is benny

- the device on his head is his "monkey hat"

- the line from hand to mouth is snow

- the right is the walkway at daycare, with the squiggles being the snow

if left to his own devices, benny would happily go outside and eat all the snow his little belly could handle. 

it would not, however, occur to him to play in it. 

for benny, winter is nothing more than an infinite syrup-free icee. 

our grocery bill totally goes down in the winter. 

below is some photographic and video evidence of this. 

as usual, from the phone so the quality is less than ideal. :)

benny, shoveling it in his face with hand. 

note, gloves had been removed. 

they complicate the snow-to-mouth motion.

good to the last drop. 

for those not familiar, ben is referencing the children's book The Gruffalo, when he states that he will bite the snow with his "terrible teeth and his terrible jaws." 

super cute. 

in the way that horrible monsters in children's stories can be cute. 

...?

The Baking Soda Incident - Part 1

some of the fodder for my posts gets put on hold until the right time. 

(and some of it waits until i get around to getting it off of my phone.)

in this case, both apply. 

today is a long day in the savvy house. 

it started this morning with me heading to campus to help facilitate a StrengthsQuest session at the Annual Conference on Leadership and Civic Engagement, while Bern took the boys to what benny calls "the haircut store."

they were a floppy-haired mess. :)

they looked like they were Beatles fans. 

then i came home to "tap out" bern and watch ben while the two older boys went to a birthday party for one of anth's friends. 

then bern ran them home and we did a costume change so that bern and i could go to the annual RA Cultural Event while the lovely Lauren Decker watched the boys. 

this event ranges each year from opera to ballet to the symphony, all with the intent of exposing students to something they may not have yet had the opportunity to experience. 

the performing arts lover in me is usually pretty geeked about these events. 

this year might take the cake. 

this year the event is the Columbus Jazz Orchestra doing "Broadway: From Oklahoma! to West Side Story."

so, bernie and i are equally happy about this.

he for the jazz, me for the broadway. 

and a hot date with 350 of our closest Res Life friends. :)

as a result, i prepped this post on Thursday night. 

aka, i cheated. 

here is the first half of what has become known as "The Baking Soda Incident." 

mainly by me. 

allow me to briefly set the stage:

- this was in early december

- anth was having a rough day

- i went upstairs to put on my PJ's

- this took approximately 2 minutes

- in that time, benny came up with an idea for making anth feel better

here is part 1: 

tomorrow, ben and i will explain what he really thought he was going to do with this small pile of baking soda...

SAFETY (dance) FIRST. . .

bern and i are big fans of PBS programming for the kids. 
particularly Word World. (and if mom's being honest, she kind of adores Peep.). 
because the majority of shows on PBS do not run the full 30 minutes, there are many little shorts and music videos that play randomly to fill up some of the time.


i feel relatively safe about PBS, so i don't always pay the closest attention while cooking and having it run in the background. 
except, the other day, i heard something along the lines of "now we are going to teach you the Safety Dance."
for about 5 seconds, i thought that PBS had become inherently cooler than i ever gave it credit for in the past. 
because, in a real moment of genius, my brain decided that PBS was going to freshen my children up on a little 1980's Men Without Hats pop-culture.
(hey, at least i'm willing to be honest about my own feats of ridiculousness.)
i came into the room to see this. 
i don't know, maybe to even do a little Safety Dancing with my kids. 


let it be known how disappointed i was when the following video came on:
PBS Safety Dance

yes, folks, that's right. 
as a parent, i was briefly disappointed when the local, public, educational programming was teaching my kids how to safely cross the street, and not, in fact, do this: (what kids should clearly be learning...) 
you can judge if you want to...


(Additional Fun Note: while doing my super-professional YouTube data gathering for this post, i found this link. clearly, someone else was as thrown off as i was. thrown off, enough, to bother to edit the original safety dance into the video. check out the festiveness here. to "ooop333" i say, great minds think alike. and, at least i'm not the only one.) 

one more time, Sans feeling

last year, anth officially declared Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer to be his favorite holiday song.

if it came on in the car, on the radio while we were in the kitchen, in a store, you name it, the entire world had to stop in its tracks so that he could listen.

and sing along.

loudly.

like, really, really loud.

really.

so, when i received this email last year from his pre-school teachers, i have to admit i fell in love with it a little bit.

(**note- a huge thanks to Kathy and James for resending this to me this week. in my on-going quest to be Parent of the Year, i lost it.)

but, it's perfect.

why do i love this video so, you ask?

1. anthony is in it.

2. he is wearing the reindeer hat with a straight face.

3. it appears that the Rudolph next to him is shying away from the camera.

4. for his dogged determination to get through his performance despite the fact that it sounds like an army of small children are rioting in the background.

5. it is so very clear from the expression on his face that this is his "very favorite song."

so, as i tend to acknowledge December 31st as the official end of the Christmas season, here is a vocal send-off to our favorite holiday.

100 Days of Savvy

well, folks, this is officially My Savvy Boy's 100th post. 
i have to give myself a that's-not-too-shabby for something i didn't know if i, or anyone else, would actually find interesting.


in honor of this not-actually-momentous occasion, i decided to post something i find 100% endearing. 
this is one more song from benny. 
and, no worries, i promise recordings of the kids will not be a regular thing. :)


this was also in his room in the dark. 
i was lying down on the floor next to his bed, as he often asks that we do after putting him in his crib. 
this time, he was not aware that i was recording his preciousness.
here is my sweet benjamin doing what i find to be the world's cutest call and response rendition of You Are My Sunshine. 
this is a song i remember my mother singing to me when i was a wee one. 
so it is a big ol' bucket of heartwarming, fun, full-circle nostalgia for me. 
deal.

the only things to make fun of here are the first three notes and the embarrassment of a "sentence" i used to praise benny's singing at the end of the recording. 

and to that i say, mock away. 

i know i would. 

Tuesday Nights equal GLEE!

and, apparently, benny shares his love of the show with his momma. 


recently, benny has discovered that i can record his vocal stylings on my phone, and he likes to put in requests for songs that he will sing. 
i will then play them back to him until he wants to record a new one. 
tonight, benny wanted to record the theme song to Go, Diego, Go!
if you are familiar with pre-school age television, you will know that his variation of this songs makes a sudden, and apparently unintentional, transition into the theme song for Little Einsteins. 
which benny soon realizes and stops himself, reflecting out loud on what the Diego song should actually sound like...
(warning, yes the screen in this video is black. it was recorded in his room at bedtime and the lights were out. this rendition was sung from his crib to my phone in the dark. precious.)

in glee terminology, this would be a loose interpretation of a "mash-up."
that's my boy. 

so naked!

tonight, benny begged to take a shower like his big brother.

though surprised, we were fine with this little adventure.

until we hit one small snag.

he didn’t want us to open the shower curtain to help him.

he felt that he was, somehow, more naked than usual at bathtime.

dance break

compliments of Yo Gabba Gabba, the boys occassionally 

break out into a "dance" they call "getting the sillies out" 

hey...

yep, our pre-schooler prefers showers to baths. 

apparently, for the acoustics.