Reasons Mommy Drinks (26 page)

INSTRUCTIONS

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

NOTE

Your drink can be the perfect shade of white, even if your baby’s teeth can’t.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

At least the name is accurate. After reading
Big Red Barn
for the 1,098th time, Mommy is officially bored. She used to pore over Jonathan Franzen novels and biographies about Steve Jobs, but now she finds herself overly invested in the search-and-rescue mission unfolding in
Where’s Spot?
This is not helping her reverse the rapid descent into permanent Mommy Brain. Some board books don’t even have plots. Or words! They’re just pictures of babies next to pictures of baby animals. How did this author get a book deal? Did she go into Random House and say, “I’ll shoot you straight. I spent my advance on a cocaine-fueled gambling binge, but check out these royalty-free stock shots I found on Google Images”? To spice things up, Mommy has started going off script and hoping you don’t notice. In last night’s rendition of
Goodnight Moon
, the Quiet Old Lady was having a torrid affair with the Cow, and the two Little Kittens were about to expose the scandal on E! Bowl Full of Mush Network. Speaking of
Goodnight Moon
, the page that says “goodnight nobody”? That’s messed up. Truthfully, Mommy knows that time passes all too quickly and soon you’ll grow out of her reading to you. Then she’ll miss Sandra Boynton’s complexities of the postmodern antihero in
The Snuggle Puppy
. One day you’ll read
Charlotte’s Web
all on your own. SPOILER ALERT: The central character
dies
. This is why you should stick to math.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce Canadian Club whisky

1 ounce peach schnapps

3 ounces cola

Squeeze of lime

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a glass with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir. Serve on a board book, which makes a great coaster.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Grocery shopping used to mean languidly browsing the aisles of Whole Paycheck, buying organic hempseed granola, sampling cold-pressed virgin olive oils, and sipping on a freshly juiced beetroot frappé. However, since you were born, Mommy’s had to switch to the discount supermarket chain, and bringing you there with her is an epic test of patience. Uh-oh. Your diaper drawer is running on empty and the only thing in the fridge is a flaccid zucchini so she’s forced to load you in the car and take a deep breath. Gone are the days of carefully reviewing ingredient lists and doing price-per-ounce comparisons on the six offerings of salsa in the Mexican food aisle. It’s a race against the clock à la Supermarket Sweep to load the shopping cart before you have a meltdown and/or hurl a carton of eggs all over aisle four. Mommy is appalled that she’s about to buy a $19 dress that’s displayed next to a pyramid of Charmin, but the five outfits she’s had on rotation since returning to work are literally disintegrating. Hey cool! The section of her wallet that used to be reserved for receipts for pretty, breakable things is now loaded up with coupons for diaper wipes and grocery points cards. In a true testament to her devotion to your nap schedule, Mommy flings her (much-needed) Lady Speed Stick to the wayside so she can use the express checkout. Because if you fall asleep in the car seat before she makes it home, she’ll be forced to drive up and down the highway for two hours while the Cherry Garcia melts all over the trunk.

INGREDIENTS

1 ounce vodka

4 ounces pink lemonade

Wedge of lemon

INSTRUCTIONS

Fill a tall glass with ice, add the vodka, top off with lemonade, and garnish with a lemon wedge. It’s time to embrace online shopping.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Sometimes the basement floods or the nanny gets deported and suddenly Mommy is forced to work from home. This usually coincides with the worst possible day ever to be out of the office. You’re happily playing on the floor, so she orchestrates a conference call.

Mommy quickly turns on
Sesame Street’s
YouTube channel, even though it might give you epilepsy, and goes off the cuff because she can’t see her PowerPoint
.

You spill organic goat milk all over Mommy’s laptop. Sad Mac face appears
.

Mommy tries to hit Mute but instead hangs up. Now she can’t find the passcode because you ate the piece of paper it was written on. When she finally dials back in, she has no idea what anyone is talking about. It’s probably about her
.

Mercifully, someone has a hard stop so the call ends. Your diaper has leaked all over the sofa. Mommy lies down on it anyway. Later you pick up her company-owned BlackBerry and toss it in the toilet, which is a good metaphor for where Mommy’s career is headed.