Reasons Mommy Drinks (12 page)

3 ounces grapefruit juice

1 ounce orange juice

Splash of grenadine

INSTRUCTIONS

Before you look at this month’s Visa bill, make yourself one of these. Fill a glass with crushed ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Mommy-to-be was all holier than thou with her “We will only buy nontoxic, eco-friendly wooden toys handcrafted by Amish people” declarations, made while sipping her organic soy chai. Cut to now. Mommy’s house looks like Fisher-Price puked its entire catalog all over her ten-by-twelve-foot living room floor, and now that you’re old enough to have an opinion, you couldn’t be less interested in the wooden duck on a string, which is now collecting dust in the corner. Mommy can run, but she definitely can’t hide from the rainbow-colored explosion of plastic toys from China that’s invaded every corner of her home. P.S., Mommy can’t even run, thanks to impaling herself on a rogue LEGO piece yesterday, an experience only slightly less painful than labor. Besides worrying about the long-term effects of the polyurethane you’re ingesting (refer to Exhibit A—the plastic sheep ear she recently found nestled in your dirty diaper), Mommy is too embarrassed by her hypocrisy to invite anyone over for playdates anymore. And leaving the house to socialize is too overwhelming thanks to the chronic headache she’s developed from all the off-gassing.

INGREDIENTS

½ ounce white crème de cacao

½ ounce vodka

½ ounce Irish cream

Dash of cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine the crème de cacao, vodka, and Irish cream in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into an ice-filled glass. Top with cinnamon.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Mommy used to kill it when it came to cardio. She could spin for an hour and still look adorable enough to flirt with Braedon, the twenty-six-year-old trainer/man candy. The gym was a social place and Mommy was on the A-list—that
A
stood for “ass,” and hers was tight. Now Mommy does baby yoga. This is not a workout but an excuse to drop $20 to do one Downward-Facing Dog and spend the other forty-three minutes in a Circle Bitch about sleep training. Mommy is still hypercompetitive, only now it’s over whose baby is doing what first. Mommy has actually pushed you to do things you’re not ready for, like propping you up to sitting, then feigned surprise when you promptly toppled over and bashed your head on a yoga block. The four calories burned trying to keep the snot-covered communal toys out of your mouth during class are made up for in spades by the post-Namaste trip to the Fair Trade coffee shop, where a carob-chip spelt cookie packs a whopping seventeen grams of fat. Mommy may now live in her Lulus, but she has a feeling the rear view isn’t the same.

INGREDIENTS

5 ounces Diet Coke

1 ounce vodka

Squeeze of lime

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a glass with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir. Only fifty-six calories!

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

It’s not even 10
AM
and you’ve been screaming in your crib for what feels like an eternity. Actually it’s been four minutes. The longest four minutes of Mommy’s life. All she wants to do is run upstairs and sweep you up into her arms, but Dr. Ferber says to let you cry for up to an hour. An hour? Mommy can’t take it. She’s tried everything from all the Guaranteed to Work books:
The No-Cry Sleep Solution; Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; The Sleepeasy Solution
. All have been epic failures. The only thing that used to work was pushing you around and around the same streets in your stroller. The bonus to that was the baby weight melted off as Mommy walked for hours a day. The best Bugaboo accessory purchase to date has been the cup holder, as Mommy mapped out her route based on Starbucks locations. Now that you’re older and more alert, this trick no longer works because you’re distracted by every dog, car, or light gust of wind. Depriving you of naps is “akin to torture,” the books say, so you have to stay in your crib and cry it out, or throw up, or both. If it’s any consolation, Mommy is also crying it out. She really wishes she could numb the sinking feeling that she’s The Worst Mother in the World. Plus, it’s hard to hear
The View
over all the combined sobbing.

INGREDIENTS

2 ounces orange juice

2 ounces pineapple juice

2 ounces pomegranate juice

1 ounce grenadine

½ ounce almond syrup

Fresh mint leaves

Pineapple spear

INSTRUCTIONS

Chill a tall glass. Combine the orange, pineapple, and pomegranate juices, grenadine, and almond syrup in a blender with cracked ice and blend until smooth. Pour into the glass, garnish with the mint and pineapple spear, and turn up the volume.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK