I have some pity for families who have kids that are sports players, and I suspect that as our kids get older we'll start sharing some more of their issues. We've started Riley at a karate (technically Kenpo) school that is nearby to his after school daycare. Yesterday was an interesting day, running back and forth between places, trying to get the information needed to sign him up properly. I spoke briefly with the woman at the desk there about how insane our schedules have become, running the kids to their various activities.

Abby has Orchestra and Chorus on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so Berta runs her to school early on those days. Riley's half-day kindergarten is a royal pain -- I'm not sure how other parents deal with it and why the school district doesn't just switch to full-day. But on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we send Riley to his after-school daycare, and on Tuesday and Thursday I pick him up and bring him home where Nana watches him. On those days he has after-school daycare, the karate school busses him from daycare to their location for the hour lesson and then returns him to the school, where Berta eventually picks him up on her way home. Sometime during all of that, Abby comes home from school on the bus, where I have to be home to wait for her. All of this is subject to the Girl Scout schedule, which often changes how things work on Fridays, and to Nana's schedule, which includes occasional doctor visits and art lessons that make it impossible for me to be out at meetings past 5pm (which might not be when the meeting is scheduled, but would include travel time home from the city or elsewhere).

Yes, it's headache-inducing.

One of the perplexing things I was talking about recently is how the extracurricular classes in our area tend to offer classes for kids at 4pm, which is great because it keeps them occupied from when they get home from school until when their parents would be home from work. But there's no way for people to get the kids to the class unless they're already not working. This is one of the great things about the karate class in that it picks up Riley from his daycare. When summer comes, I'll end up having to cart him over there myself two days a week, and then in September (since the karate school is a minimum 6-month contract -- why do they do this?) it'll be an additional after-school activity that we'll end up running the kids to.

It's a good thing we keep all of our family appointments in the Google calendar, otherwise we'd be completely lost. Each of us has our own calendar, plus a shared family calendar to keep things straight. I've even allocated scpecific time on my work calendar to make sure I'm not scheduling things during times I need to pick up Riley. Although, it would be handy if the scheduling system was somehow smart enough to know that I shouldn't schedule a meeting that's 45 minutes away to end right before I need to pick up a kid. Perhaps they'll add this feature for beleaguered parents.

While Abby is a typical early-riser, and those genes don't come from Berta or me, neither of the kids have yet discovered the Christmas morning ritual of waking their parents at 5am with "Can we open our presents now?" Thankfully. No, I'm about to ruin my good fortune by saying we've been strangely lucky in our ability to sleep in until 9am or so before the kids stir. Still, there's a lot to do on Christmas day, and sometimes it seems more like work than a Holiday should bring.

We'll usually get up at say, 9am. I'm sure that as the kids get older, this will change and be earlier. We need to give a reasonable amount of time for Santa to place gifts under the tree, so we'll have to enforce some limit on the time before we can go downstairs.

We'll do our present opening shortly after we wake up. Our past years of gift unwrapping has been kind of odd. I've never met kids so unenthusiastic about opening gifts. I think they need to pace themselves. Maybe a better plan would be to open a few gifts at a time throughout the day. Not that they won't be opening gifts all day, as you'll see.

After gifts, which likely includes some coffee for the parents, we'll do breakfast. I've been convincing Berta to make this "traditional" - at least it's a tradition for us now that we've been doing it for a few years - New York-style baked cream cheese French toast. There's a special stoneware dish she cooks it in, and it's basically small-square French toast with cream cheese and maple syrup baked in. There's usually also some link sausage and orange juice.

We've been inviting my dad over for breakfast, which I think may end up being a second breakfast for him, since he's the early riser (I knew it came from somewhere), and we do our gift exchange with him in the morning and loaf around a little to let the kids play with their stuff. Somewhere between our initial present opening and breakfast, someone runs to my mom's where my brother stays when he comes to visit, and transports him to our house to visit with us and my dad.

At a late lunch time, Dad rolls out and Berta and I stare at each other while the kids play and seem to forget about the second meal of the day. Pat doesn't usually seem to care about food, since he's often still on Pacific time and probably still isn't even awake.

Shortly after that Mom and Nana roll in. We do round three of gift exchange. As I said, the kids have stuff to open all day. Last year we got two Christmas trees, one for the living room and one for the family room, because there were simply too much gifts. Not that I wish anything bad on anyone, but perhaps the recent economic downturn will reduce that this year. If not, we've only got one tree this time, so I'm just going to be chucking new stuff into the basement as it starts to pile up.

Gift exchange with Mom, and then dinner. I don't remember what we did last year, but Mom's bringing dinner to our house this year. We'll probably eat dinner, play with our toys a little bit, and then Nana will get tired and want to leave. This usually happens around 5pm. I kid. 8pm. If she would just put the dishes in the washer and not putter all evening maybe she wouldn't wear out so quickly, but then again, maybe she does that to keep herself busy and then doesn't know what to do with herself after and that's why she wants to leave. Perhaps we should find something that would keep her entertained in the evening.

Anyway, that's a pretty full day.

And then on the weekend we get to visit my in-laws: Three of Berta's sisters' and their parents' worth of Christmas packed into virtually a single whole day 220 miles from home. Pack the books, it's going to be a long trip.

I think last year was similar and went smoothly, although we ran a bit late in the morning. I think we're going to adjust times this year, so that things work out even more smoothly. The ultimate goal is to depressurize Christmas for everyone. It's supposed to be a joyous/fun holiday, and although forcing joy and fun ruins it, I think the word "relax" is the key to success. We'll see how it goes.

I'm writing this post from the Septa R5 into Philadelphia, on my way to Suburban Station and a day of work at a temporary office across the street from Liberty Place. That may be one breath of a sentence, but it's appropriate for the month I'm having.

Deadlines for work have gotten... interesting. And in the midst of it all, I have meetings with big clients for the rest of the week. Next week I give a presentation on PHP frameworks, specifically CodeIgniter, which is fun since I haven't used it since maybe June, coincidentally for the client that I'm meeting in the city today. At some point before this major deadline I need to take some time out to watch Riley, since Nana is going on vacation with mom.

Has anyone mentioned the Habari 0.3 release? Any. Day. Now. Just a metter of saying, at this point, "no more", and putting it out. But I don't have the time to do it myself, and my attempts to get others focuses on it have fizzled so far. But I'm (perhaps stupidly) still optimistic for this month.

There's a blogger meetup this weekend, which I'd really like to attend, since I feel like I haven't seen those folks in a dog's age. Should I even look forward to November?

November brings Riley's third birthday, Thanksgiving (again - what to do this year?) and the usual prep for Christmas that takes a month's advance planning.

It's just a bit frustrating that I've set myself some blogging goals for the month, as you might have noticed. With all what else to do, you'd even think I'd have more to write about, but the reality is infuriatingly the opposite. So I've got to find/do things to blog about and have time to blog them. Yes, a very challenging month indeed.

So these little escapes while sardine-packed onto the train could be my most personally productive moments. Thank goodness blogging from my phone is possible. (Yes, this whole post typed on the chicklet keypad.) Aye de mi.