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Broke Wife, Big City
Honest
Christmas Letter
By Aprill Brandon
Greetings, friends and family and people I barely know anymore but
still have your addresses saved so what the hell!
I hope this year has been good to you (she types like she hasn’t
stalked over half of you on social media late at night with a glass of
wine in her hand...definitely-not-creepy haha!).
It’s been a wonderful year here at the Brandon-Huddle household. At
least I think it has. If I’m being completely honest, I can’t remember
what it was like before the Vague Plague swept through our house,
reducing all of us to coughing, feverish, snotty shells of our former
selves. You know, that mysterious illness that hits one family member
and then passes through all the rest until the first one finally gets
better right as the last one is coming down with it, thus passing it
back onto the first one, on and on and on until none of you can
remember what it is like to breathe through one nostril anymore, let
alone two. It has no name but is somewhere in-between a cold and the
flu. Unless, of course, the man of the house gets it, in which case it
is a Very Serious Case of Almost Certain Death.
But although our collective health is currently drowning in a tsunami
of snot, everything else is a fantastic mixed bag of tragicomedy.
Ryan is working hard as usual. Some would say too hard. And by some I
mean me. Awkward haha! Because I reach a certain point in the evening
where I simply cannot “mom” for one more minute. But at least he’s
smart enough to know that if he walks through that door past six he is
to have a bottle of wine tucked under his arm for me. Maybe also a
cheeseburger. And a taco.
But it’s not entirely his fault. You gotta make a living, right? Kids
are expensive. And during those brief twelve minutes we have together
in-between the kids going down and us passing out on the couch after
watching the opening credits of “Sabrina” on Netflix, we are reminded
how much we love each other as we grunt and stare vacant-eyed into the
other’s rapidly aging face.
As for myself, I completed a half marathon this year, which has been a
dream of mine ever since my friend Emily texted me “wanna do a
half-marathon?” and I drunkenly texted back “hellz yesh!” The race was
awful. Just truly awful. Why do people like to do this? What is wrong
with them?
But the point remains that I did it. Which I now tell anyone standing
within earshot.
I’ve also been keeping up with my writing, even dabbling in writing a
book. Which was going great up until the point I realized I didn’t have
a plot. Which, it turns out, is pretty vital. Who knew?
This has also been a big year for our oldest, Riker, who started
preschool this year. He loves it. Now. In the first few weeks there was
some atomic-level leg clinging during drop-off but now he can’t stop
talking about school. At least I think he’s talking about school. His
stories aren’t always coherent. They pretty much start somewhere at the
¾ mark and then jump backward toward the middle with a brief glance at
the beginning while the ending has apparently escaped through some
window, never to be heard of again.
Allow me to share his latest. It’s so cute. I think.
“So then Ethan is a bad guy, but a friendly bad guy, and we chased the
ghosts on the swings and Mrs. Ferris says, but Momma, it’s always
important to share, and remember, Momma, when you first get to the
classroom, we have to do our arrival jobs so we walk quietly and
carefully to our cubby and put away our things and then sometimes
Sophia hugs me too hard and I don’t like it but that’s ok and now I’m a
big boy, not a baby, which is why the vampires were hiding in the
closet.”
Speaking of babies, our baby isn’t a baby anymore. Mae turned 2 in
July. She is just turning out to be a fantastic little person, albeit
one who drinks what has to be an unhealthy amount of bath water. We are
a bit nervous about her arch-villain tendencies but, as they say, raise
the children you have, not the children you want.
And last, but certainly not least, is our dog Buffy. He’s 13 now! Can
you believe it? I certainly can but then again I am constantly reminded
thanks to his old man dog farts, which are numerous and aromatic, to
put it politely. But the vet says he is in great shape and super
healthy and only charged us $600 to tell us that.
All in all, we realize how lucky we are with our beautiful little
family and a roof that only leaks sometimes over our heads. Although if
anyone is wondering what to get us for Christmas, a nap would just be
fantastic.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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