We started making gingerbread men on Thanksgiving morning before Owen was born. We turn on the parade, cut out the cookies, decorate with homemade frosting, and have eaten enough to be in a full on sugar crash by the time Santa gets to Macy's. When I told the kids today that we were going to be making gingerbread men tomorrow, I was met with a resounding and stereophonic "Do we have to?"

And then when I announced that I would be making cinnamon rolls (from scratch, mind you) for breakfast tomorrow, Mia said "But why?" and Owen said "Ew, gross." And then they both said, "Do we have to eat them?"

Yes, yes you do. And you have to make gingerbread men as well. I'm making your childhood memories here, goddamit, now smile and have fun.

Sigh.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, my dear old friends, and may all of your children participate in your family traditions without whining.

What are you watching?

I'm watching Sons of Anarchy season whatever they are on now and Dowtown Abbey season 2. Chris and I are caught up on Walking Dead and working our way through a backlog of Mad Men. We watched all of The Booth at the End over the summer. Otherwise, we watch a couple of shows that we mostly hate and sometimes, like last night, get sucked into some sort of Intervention marathon and stay up entirely too late watching something we will never watch again.

We have cable and Netflix streaming and Hulu and Amazon Prime and there must be something better out there with which to pass the mindless hour a night between when the children finally fall asleep and we head upstairs ourselves, but we haven't the foggiest what it might be. So tell me, what's good? It doesn't have to new, in fact we both like to have an entire series of something available in case we like it.

Oh, and you will notice a total lack of comedies on my list. That's because I have no sense of humor. You can recommend them though, and I'll pass the ideas along to Chris for the nights I'm out.

Sometimes it is fine, really, almost totally fine. And other parents and other kids have it so much worse, and really it is fine, and probably totally normal, and developmentally appropriate or at least he will likely grow out of it but really nothing to worry about. Except that maybe it is, something to worry about I mean, but how am I to know, I'm not an expert.

And that, my friends, is borderline. And we are, so many of us, trained not to raise a stink for anything less than egregious. We mind our manners. We wait and see. But sometimes even the most reticent among us have to stand up and say, or really, stand up and yell, wait, this isn't right. This is my kid, and this isn't right.

Which is why Owen - challenging, trying, sweeter than a chocolate factory Owen - has both a full speech evaluation and an (almost unbelievably unrelated, but I assure you that it is) ENT appointment to determine whether he needs to have his adenoids removed coming up in the next month. And Owen loves teachers, so the speech thing is no problem, but man does he hate doctors, bringers of throat cultures and shots.

Poor thing. But I'm the mom, and something, somewhere, isn't quite right. Not quite. Borderline. Sorry, baby, but it is my job to stand up and yell about it.

I started running in mid-August. And then I went on vacation and then I started running all over again at the beginning of September. I did Couch to 5k via a handy dandy iPhone app and lots of full-blast Pandora and I hated almost every minute of it but lo and behold, by the end I could run 5k without stopping or dying along the way. And after that I added some distance so that I've actually run 5 consecutive miles a couple of times now.

None of this is all that interesting, except that I have been trying, off and on, to be a runner for about 12 year now, and in all those 12 years I never once managed to put three miles together. I never managed it because I wanted to be fast. I couldn't just run a mile, it had to be an eight minute mile. Never mind if I hadn't exercised in a year and smoked a pack a day. And as soon as I ran one mile I started planning how I would run a marathon. I never, ever made it to a race of any kind. I would burn out, or break my foot, or get pregnant, or something else would happen and I would give it up cold.

And then yesterday, I ran my local Turkey Trot. My goals were to finish and to run the entire way. And I did. I put together some 10-plus minute miles and I high-fived my kids and Mia made me a sign and I ran every step of those 5000 meters and finished just over 32 minutes and I hated every single second of it. But I did it. And now that it is over I am overly proud of myself and feel the need to brag. A lot.

Now, did I ever tell you about that time I got an A in Calculus?

I'm 38 today. I could be coy and just say that today is my birthday, but I got over coy roughly a decade ago, so now I am 38 and here we are. I debated and debated what to do with myself on my birthday since I have roughly three hours child and husband free, and after running through all my options I decided to sit on my couch for three hours and watch back to back to back DVR'd episodes of Sons of Anarchy. (Do not talk to me about Sons of Anarchy, I'm still five episodes behind.) Anyway, I watched one episode, but then I was bored with the couch so I went running, and then I headed straight back to the couch for more biker violence. Pretty ideal morning, if you ask me.

Anyway, things here are good. Mia is missing so many teeth that she is living on overcooked pasta and applesauce, but she is very happy in school this year and that is a huge improvement on all of our lives. Also, she finally has a warm-blooded pet and it suits her so well. He's a guinea pig named Andersen, and Chris and I have taken to calling him Andersen Pooper. Owen is very nearly five and I have to constantly remind myself of all the very nearly five children I have known and how badly most of them have needed a good throttling in order to avoid delivering said (purely hyperbolic) throttling to my own child, but when he isn't screaming on the floor because I didn't pour the precise amount of milk into his glass that he desired he is really a very sweet boy. Although he just refused to participate in his weekly swim lesson and both kicked me and hit me with his goggles for good measure, just to drive his point home. So there's that.

(I just updated their pictures over on the right there, so click through from your feed reader if you are interested. Poor Owen - add "impossible to get a good picture of cause they do that weird smile thing" to the burdens of being almost-five.)

A friend of mine died last month. It was neither sudden nor unexpected, but still far too soon and too young. She taught me that if life hands you lemons you should say oh well fuck you too and grab an awesome hat and sing some show tunes and make lemonade confetti and load it into a cannon and fire it straight back into life's face. She also taught me that, when you are threading a needle, you should never lick the thread. Lick the needle instead, and I swear that thread practically jumps through the eye.

I'm thinking of making 38 the year I blog again. It seems impossible from here, but maybe all I have to do is lick the needle instead of the thread.