Reasons Mommy Drinks (27 page)

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce Malibu rum

1 ounce tequila

3 ounces lemon-lime soda

Splash of orange juice

Splash of grenadine

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine all ingredients in an ice-filled glass and stir. Enjoy while surfing Monster.com.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Nine o’clock used to be a dinner reservation. Now it’s a bedtime. By the time Mommy feeds you squash, washes squash off the wall, and gets you to bed, she has exactly twenty-three minutes to eat whatever you didn’t in front of
The X-Factor
before she passes out with her hair encrusted in squash. Being up at 2
AM
used to mean it was a good night. Now it’s a very, very bad night. It means Mommy will also be up at 3
AM
, up at 4
AM
, and up for good at 6
AM
. Those wee hours used to be for flirting with the bartender to keep the drinks flowing while sexting her backup plan for a booty call. Now she spends that time praying you will go back to sleep while texting her sleep-challenged Mommy friends and cursing the “bulletproof”
No-Cry Sleep Solution
and Daddy’s ability to sleep through anything. Sometimes, when Mommy’s in line for her fourth Americano Misto of the day, she’ll overhear a twenty-something lament being “soooo exhausted.” When Mommy was single, “exhaustion” referred to a state of ennui that came from being bored with skinny jeans and dating guys with ironic mustaches. Mommy misses that kind of tired.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce crème de cacao

1 ounce crème de menthe

Splash of milk

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a glass with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir. Enjoy after 8
PM
but before 9
PM
lest you turn into a sleep-deprived gremlin the next day.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

During a moment of postpartum weakness, Mommy was seduced by a sandwich board outside the local fitness club advertising low membership fees without any initiation charges or commitments. She was also seduced by the club’s free “child care” (translation: one exhausted Russian woman and thirty-eight kids running amok in a room smaller, hotter, and germier than the sauna). Later examination of the contract’s fine print revealed that Mommy had signed her life away for a free T-shirt, but she was willing to overlook the management’s questionable ethics for a chance at scoring the body gracing the promotional flyer. Fast-forward: she’s been to the gym exactly twice since your birth and the only thing more painful than walking the next day was the realization that each visit cost her $765. Mommy knows that investing that money in her 401(k) could be her ticket to retiring in Bali. But she’s plagued by the fear that throwing in her gym towel could be the gateway to a low-maintenance haircut or buying Crocs. Yes, Mommy is exhausted and time starved, and hasn’t picked up an issue of
InStyle
since her first trip to Motherhood Maternity, but if her annual donation to the gym is the price she needs to pay to keep her quest for rock-hard abs alive, Mommy is silencing her inner Suze Orman and holding on to the dream, dammit!

NOTE

0.5% beer. Another way to not get ripped.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

If never missing an episode of
Full House
taught Mommy anything, it’s that first steps must be captured on film. Back in 1994, this meant recording the moment on a massive camcorder, which Uncle Jesse scored with an original ballad. Today this means archiving the milestone with a slickly edited iMovie cut to Mumford & Sons. As you took your first tentative steps, Mommy’s heart swelled with pride. Now it swells with fear. Gone are the days of leaving you in your recalled Bumbo while she “prepared” dinner (read: tossed a frozen pizza in the oven). Walking means you can literally go from 0 to Crashing Through the Screen Door in mere moments. If Hermès made a baby leash she would buy it, but she just can’t subject you to the Baby Sherpa Safe2Go Harness fashion blunder. Mommy is already worried that Child Protective Services is going to be called, thanks to the permanent bruise on your forehead from careening into everything. Plus, now that you can walk, your favorite activities include opening every drawer looking for stabby things and going on scavenger hunts for choking hazards. As her eyes fill with tears while you teeter on wobbly knees, Mommy has the distinct feeling that as a teenager, you’re going to walk all over her.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce Johnnie Walker

2 ounces lemonade

2 ounces Red Bull

Wedge of lime

INSTRUCTIONS

Run, don’t walk, to the freezer and fill a glass with ice. Pour in the Johnnie Walker, lemonade, and Red Bull. Garnish with a lime wedge.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK