Reasons Mommy Drinks (22 page)

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce mandarin vodka

½ ounce cherry vodka

½ ounce Cointreau

Splash of lime juice

Splash of pomegranate juice

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a glass.

NOTE

The traditional Cosmo may be the single girl’s go-to drink, but this delicious tipple is just for you.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Nothing used to make Mommy feel more relaxed than a bath. Bubbles, lavender-scented candles, and some Sade were all she needed to unwind. Now bath time gives Mommy several mini–heart attacks (fear of hypothermia/​drowning/​soap blindness), and it’s worse now that you keep trying to stand (fear of splitting head open on Moen faucet). Mommy is not sure who is more soaking after tub time, you or her. Then the other day you “dropped some kids off at the pool.” Weird face + making your own bubbles = suddenly you’re bathing in feces. Mommy briefly felt triumphant after she successfully held you squirming and slippery while using the massage feature on the hand wand to beat last night’s mushy peas down the drain. Then you peed on her.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce light rum

1 ounce blueberry schnapps

3 ounces blue Gatorade

Frozen blueberries

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a highball glass with ice. Pour in the rum, schnapps, and Gatorade and stir. Garnish with blueberries. Enjoy on a nonslip surface.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Mommy didn’t know how good she had it during your first few months of life, when the only thought she had to put into meal planning was whether to offer you the right or the left breast first (and even that she got wrong half the time). Your voyage into the world of solids started with the puree phase, where Mommy learned that her blender had functionality beyond margarita making. Unfortunately, just when she had finally perfected her sweet potato–banana–pea medley, it was time to move on to more substantial solids. This meant brushing up on the baby Heimlich, bracing for new surprises in your diaper, and learning whether this self-directed feeding craze would be as horribly messy as it sounded. (Check.) Mommy’s fantasies of preparing a week’s worth of elaborate meals every Sunday afternoon died before she finished typing “Baby + Meals” into Google. In real life, meal preparation involves cutting up whatever random assortment of fruits and vegetables happen to be in the crisper into bite-sized pieces, at least 50 percent of which end up on the floor. The books say this will get easier in a few months when you’ll be able to eat everything Mommy does. Sadly, Mommy’s pretty sure that a diet of frozen pizzas and Häagen-Dazs bars do not the next Bill Gates make, and she’s counting on you to make her dreams of early retirement come true.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce light rum

3 tablespoons coconut cream

3 tablespoons crushed pineapple

2 cups ice

INSTRUCTIONS

Bust out the blender and dump all the ingredients inside. Let the sound of the whirring motor bring you back to all-inclusive trips of days gone by when the only planning you had to do was deciding which minidress to wear to the foam party.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Mommy was already a fringe member of the neighborhood Mommy circles, given her lackluster baking skills and shameful habit of dressing you in sleepers at all hours of the day, well beyond the three-month grace period. But now you’ve sealed her social fate as a Mommy pariah with your newfound hair-pulling fixation. Unfortunately, Mommy’s desperate cries of “Gentle! Gentle!” only make you pull your victim in closer, until Mommy is forced to pry you away, beg for forgiveness, and then disappear with you into the night, her head bowed in shame. Mommy thought hairless babies were safe from your iron fist, but apparently you don’t distinguish between a handful of hair and scalp. Even more upsetting than the trauma you’ve inflicted on your former playmates is Mommy’s realization that, for the rest of her life, any bad behavior you engage in will always reflect on her and something she should or shouldn’t have done/​said/​taught/​discouraged/​encouraged/​practiced. Mommy wants to pull her hair out just thinking about it.

INGREDIENTS

2 ounces coconut milk

2 ounces lime juice

Sparkling water

Sprig of fresh mint

INSTRUCTIONS

Combat baby-induced social isolation by getting in touch with your inner Tom Hanks with this
Castaway
-inspired mocktail. Chill a tall glass and fill it with ice. Combine the coconut milk and lime juice in a shaker, and pour into the glass. Fill with sparkling water, stir, and garnish with the mint. If you’re feeling lonely these days, befriend a volleyball. “Wilsonnnnnnnnn!”

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK