love-love (i know nothing about tennis)

yesterday, we finished moving this year's slew of Ohio State University students into the residence halls.

it was an exciting, and full, day.

as such, my brain feels kind of squishy and useless today.

thankfully, i loaded this last set of pictures from california over a month ago, so i have an easy post waiting to be used.

this is a good thing as coherent would not be a good way to describe me today.

hopefully, i will also make my mom happy, as she has been waiting a long time to see all of these pictures.

on our last full day in San Clemente, we decided to do something other than go to the beach.

largely because anth was pretty much over it.

and he was developing carpel tunnel syndrome from playing paddle ball.

so we decided to do something much better for his poor little wrist.

we thought we would give him an adult sized tennis racket and see how that worked out for him.



(actually, first we went to play a little bit of air hockey and the game with the little people on sticks who are playing faux football. or soccer. you know? the one i am too tired to remember the name of and too lazy right now to google so i don't sound like a moron? that one.)

ben was dead set on playing this game. 
as you can probably deduce from looking at the picture, he is not the best height for this game. 
this resulted in lots of frustration and a stick or two to the eye. 
that was when we decided on tennis.  

ben was much happier with this choice.
there was room to roam and, seemingly, no height requirements.

give or take the whole the-net-is-as-big-as-i-am factor.

he didn't let this get him down.

anth actually got to play tennis for a week at his summer sports camp back home, so he was excited to try out his new skills with Aunt Katie and Jeff.

aunt katie was excited to show my mom how to do . . . this.
currently, katie is enjoying Bikram yoga.
this basically involves doing yoga in a room that is heated to approximately 105 degrees.
she tried to convince me to give it a try.
i tried to remind her that, though we have not lived together for 16 years, i am still krystyne.
an inherent function of being krystyne involves avoiding hot places and sweat.
especially hot places where i will need to exert myself.
 

amidst the yoga lessons and ben running around playing a version of tennis that exists only in his mind, anth remained focused.

dad and anth played against katie and jeff, and later katie and my dad.
the whole thing was pretty cute.

later, katie got my dad to give it a whirl.

dad's yoga lesson didn't last very long.

at some point, something happened.
and ben reacted.
i no longer remember what that something was.
but that is usually how the story goes with my littlest man, so i feel pretty confident about this account.

the beaus.

i made the mistake of putting the camera down and bernie grabbed it.
so, here is one shot to prove i was actually there that day.
you can't see it, but ben is still crying here.
note the look of parental concern on my face.

oof.

fail photo 37: my kids don't look like me!

i am told on a semi-regular basis that my kids look just like bernie.

more specifically, folks usually say that anth looks just like bern.

i generally have two responses, depending on the audience.

one involves smiling and agreeing wholeheartedly.

the other involves agreeing and making some flip remark about genetics.

but, you know what?

i really don't see it.

there, i said it.

i don't actually think my kids look much like me.

or bern.

i think anth looks a lot like anth. and ben like ben.

i have always contested that benny actually looks like the men in my family.

so, during our august trip to see the fam in california, i took a minute to scan a few pictures around the house.

because me telling random people in ohio that i think ben looks like my grandpa isn't all that helpful.

now, you have it.

photos to weigh in on.

so i guess these aren't the traditional mysavvyboys "fail photos," so much as my photos of my kids failing to look like me.

womp.

also included below are pictures that show that the boys really did look a lot like one another at certain ages, though they don't right now.

for starters, here is what we look like.

except for my foot of missing hair that i can't grow back as fast as i'd like.

(this photo was taken by pricsilla of http://www.priscillajoyphotography.com/) 

here's another shot of bern.

since his face is the one in question.

and because i think it's a cute photo of him.

i have no idea what ben is reacting to so strongly on a children's playground.

this is my dad.

this picture will do absolutely nothing to prove that anth or ben look like him.

i just think it's a really cool picture.

this is my dad and his brother.

my Uncle Harry.

circa 1990-something.

here is my sister and i with our Grandpa Harry.

#1 - dear mom, that bow in my hair is potentially the reason i dressed in all black for most of high school. that's a whole lot of girliness going on up there.

#2 - also, i am wearing white socks with black dress shoes.

#3 - this was the thing to do in 1987.

#4 - no, it wasn't.

#5 - look how freaking cute my little sister is.

 

for a better comparison, this is Grandpa Harry up close.

you will note that these photos were clearly in frames before i scanned them.

and that my grandpa was not originally wearing a magenta jacket as i had thought all these years.

this is benny.

he is close to 6 months old here.

here, you will note benny rocking the same smile as that of my dad and his brother in the 90's.

and this includes my "i think ben looks like he has some Welch in him" photo series.

(bern's house has some good evidence of benny also looking like his Uncle Frank Anthony, but i thought it would seem odd to start taking photos off of their walls during our last visit.)

now, this is benny at 18 months old.

he looks all sweet an innocent.

but, that is actually a piece of candy/gum/something sweet sticking out from behind his head.

the only reason he is smiling is so that he can eat it.

 

and this is aunt katie with anthony at about 15 months.

similar, right?

and, just because i was busy scanning, here is a picture of me from the late 70's.

 

let it be known, combovers on babies were all the rage in 1978.

if only the beach didn't come with an ocean . . .

i still haven't finished putting up the four sets of photos i have from california.

i am such a slacker.

or my life is so exciting that i had even more fun things to post about.

interpret as you will. 

actually, the boys have been up to all kinds of antics over the last week or so.

and anth has brought home some fabulous classwork i will share soon.

but, i have been involved in a variety of things this week at work that have included moving 50 heavy tables, operating a life size game of Yahtzee, handing out ridiculous amounts of magnets, wearing a fake mustache, unloading the cars of incoming residents, and talking to first year students about utilizing their strengths.

most of this has involved standing all day.

and, apparently, i am no longer cut out for . . . standing.

because i'm pooped.

so, a few lazy posts for you over the next few days as we work to move in our almost 11,000 OSU residents between now and Sunday.

captions feel like something i can manage tonight.

partway through our time in california, my sister Katie and her boyfriend Jeff flew out from Kauai to join us.
i wish i could say that my pale self was a result of living in ohio.
but that would make me a liar.
i was just gifted with the irish skin in the family.

we immediately decided the best thing to do would be to put ben somewhere easy to monitor.

ben immediately did . . . this.
i am not sure what "this" is.

katie and jeff always bring fun things from hawaii with them.
i got some lovely smelling soaps and kona cookies, and we all shared some pineapple wine.
she made the executive decision that the boys would probably prefer toys to coconuts and mangoes.
she picked kites.
this was a fantastic decision.
especially for anth, who had decided he didn't enjoy the whole ocean part of the beach.
and sandcastles require ocean water, so those were out.
so, really, there was only so much paddle ball a person could play.
kites were a welcome new adventure to him.

aunt katie mae & anth

back to paddle ball.

aunt katie and her beau jeff

more paddle ball.

not an exaggeration.

katie's boyfriend jeff is a surfer.
who lives in kauai.
after a full day with no surf board, he slummed it up with a boogie board just to get out in the water.

ben loves putting on his sunscreen.

i mean, just look at that.
pure joy.

one of the few family shots we have from the trip.
please excuse whatever it is that ben is doing.
i promise he is just blocking out the sun.

my biggest savvy boy.

slightly awkward hand placement.
 

that's better.
 

here is my fam.
without me.

no, we did not plan these bathing suits.

ben told us he had "a widdle bit of sand in his shoe."
clearly.

perhaps we should have stopped and helped him out a tad sooner.

perhaps.

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

driving to grandpa's

last weekend, we drove to visit grandpa and great grandpa savarese.

as we got close to their area, ben woke up from his nap.

he looked out the window.

(which, i know, in and of itself was a miracle considering the bugs at this point.)

but, look out the window he did.

benny: look guys! the ocean!
parental units: no, honey. the ohio valley.
wrong grandparents.

fight songs are confusing - part 2

Story #2: Anth Interprets an Ohio State Fight Song.

at the top of each month, we go out to dinner as a family.
this month, we went to Uno Chicago Grill for some deep dish.
yum.
on our way in, i was telling bernie about Story #1 (see below)
at this point, anth starts singing "I Wanna Go Back" with quite a bit of moxy.
when he got to the lyric, "and when we win the game, we'll buy a keg of booze," out came the following:
"and when we win the game, we'll buy a kangaroo!"

i laughed.
and then i stopped laughing.
because i realized he was serious.
he legitimately thinks that when Buckeyes win football games, the appropriate response is to purchase a marsupial.

and here is where day two of "krystyne questions her parental decision making" came into play.
i looked at bern.
and i could tell we both kind of wanted to correct him.
in the end, we didn't.
but just barely.

fight songs are confusing - part 1

i have a thing for song lyrics.
when it comes to music, i am often more interested in the lyrics than the music itself.
bern loves a good beat.
for me, lyrics can either win me over or turn me off entirely.

yesterday, i shared a video of benny choosing to exhibit some buckeye pride instead of taking a nap.
this weekend, you get two more stories revolving around the same song.
it's getting a lot of mileage right now.

Story #1: Benny Sings About Getting Intoxicated.
In Public.

benjamin came to work with me a few weeks ago on a day that his daycare center was closed.
we spent a small part of the morning walking around the residence halls in the area of campus i serve.
we were delivering welcome notes and door decs to my Hall Directors and Assistant Hall Directors.
yes, i make nametags for the office doors of my staff.
it's just a thing we do in residence life.
moving on.
anyway, all of these buildings are connected by an underground tunnel.
this is quite lovely when you want to get to the cafeteria in another building on a snowy day.
to benny, the lovely part was the HEP.
High Echo Potential.
he chose to use this HEP to his advantage.
and, because he was in an appropriately Buckeye-ish mood, he chose to belt out "I Wanna Go Back" at the top of his lungs.
let me tell you, there is nothing like being the parent of a toddler screaming "and when we win the game, we'll buy a keg of booze, and we'll drink to old ohio 'til we wobble in our shoes" at the top of his lungs.
that's pride.
(until social services comes knocking.)

ben has become increasingly concerned about song lyrics recently.
we spent a good 5 minutes in the car this morning talking about how your soul can catch a cold because we were listening to Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri.
(here is a genius video with the song and a lovely visual aid.)
anyway.
ben doesn't like having colds so he was concerned about this new option for getting them.

he was also recently concerned with the lyrics to I Wanna Go Back.
specifically, he asked, "why do they be wobbling in dere shoes?"
shortly after, he answered himself.
"probably betause they saw a lion."
i felt the best parental decision in that moment was to allow him to believe this fact.

come back tomorrow to find out yet another way in which Ohio State Fight Songs made me question my abilities as a parent.