The Usual Craziness, Times Ten

This time of year usually involves a confluence of dance and robotics for our family. For every young ballerina, December is the Season of the Nutcracker, and our little dancer is no exception. And for teams involved in FIRST Tech robotics, we're ramping up for competitions in January.

This year, things got just a little bit crazier, as Asa is playing Clara, her dream role. Here she is with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Nutcracker Prince. Of course, this means dozens of extra rehearsals, which she is just thrilled to do, but in this dark and rainy time of year means more car time  for the taxi driver (me). Still, I can't wait to see her realize her dreams on the stage in a few weeks!

Meanwhile, I'll be driving 220 miles roundtrip tomorrow with our robotics team as we head off to our first Robo "Fest" (an opportunity to work on our robot and scrimmage with other teams on an official playing field).

Again, I'm absolutely thrilled that my science-minded son is so enthusiastically engaged with building and programming robots. I know if these teams had been around when I was his age, I would've been ecstatic. As it was, I had to make do with programming in BASIC on a TRS-80 (don't laugh), and saving my programs onto a cassette tape (hey, at least it wasn't punched cards).

 Meanwhile, show of hands - who thinks my son looks just like Jeremy from Zits?? He's not wearing a plaid shirt in this photo, but the lanky in-the-eyes hair and the hunched posture (not to mention the sleeping late, eating everything in sight and general attitude) are just about a perfect match.

Normally during this time of year I'd be busy getting lackadaisical about my workouts, so none of this would be an issue, but my lack of "on season" this summer, combined with signing up for an early season Ironman in 2012 has conspired to make me work hard this winter. So tomorrow I've got to figure out how to fit a run into the day, and Sunday will see me indoors on the bike trainer spinning my wheels. Somehow, I can't wait 'til Thanksgiving break - four days of nothingness. Except for eating and workouts, of course!