Reasons Mommy Drinks (6 page)

Mommy used to party irresponsibly. She used to wear pleather and dance on the bar to “Pony” by Ginuwine, and once while overserved $2 Amaretto sours she ate a whole apple pie off some random dude’s table. Mommy would wake up in a dry-mouthed haze at noon and piece together the evening through Facebook photos and a Sent folder of drunken texts to ex-boyfriends. Then she’d meet her friends for brunch at 2
PM
to discuss who made out with which bouncer. Now if Mommy has more than a glass of wine she pays for it at 2
AM
, 4
AM
, and 6
AM
, when you wake up screaming and she has to feed you from the stash of breast milk in the freezer. She used to keep nothing but vodka and an eye mask in there. Times have changed.

INSTRUCTIONS

1 ounce, served neat. If you’re going to have only one drink, make it count.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

On the occasion of Mommy’s birthday, Daddy tries to melt away three months of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion with the (previously) fail-safe gift of a day at the spa. Unfortunately, Mommy’s first postnatal spa visit doesn’t quite pan out as planned. First, the massage therapist has the misguided notion that Mommy wants to spend her first child-free hour in months answering a continuous stream of questions about labor when all she really wants to do is fantasize about Matt Damon. Mommy’s rejuvenation facial is scored by pan flutes, wind chimes, and a lecture about the toll that her lack of sleep is taking on the skin around her eyes, delivered by an aesthetician who looks twelve. Mommy hasn’t even cracked
Us Weekly
in the postservice tranquility room when Daddy calls with the news that you’ve been wailing incessantly for the past forty-five minutes, refusing to take the bottle. Mommy heads immediately to the checkout desk, where she’s pressured in her vulnerable postpartum state into dropping $75 on an antigravity firming lift cream from France that she’ll find unopened and expired in her bathroom drawer in 2020. As she races uptown at lightning speed, Mommy’s nipples leak all over the steering wheel. Serenity now!

INGREDIENTS

½ ounce green tea liqueur

½ ounce melon liqueur

3 ounces mango juice

2 ounces cream

Fresh mint leaves

Freshly ground nutmeg

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine the green tea liqueur, melon liqueur, mango juice, and cream in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a Champagne flute. Garnish with mint and nutmeg, and hold your breath for eighteen years.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Even more hotly debated than health-care reform is which of the 563 models of baby-wearing devices to buy. Despite witnessing multiple demos by store clerks on some petrifying dummy babies, Mommy never actually mastered any of the three baby carriers she purchased during a hormone-induced shopping spree in her last trimester. There was the structured baby carrier from Europe with twelve buckles, six adjustment straps, and a recall notice. There was the two-foot-wide, sixteen-foot-long piece of organic cotton fabric that all the websites said was “so easy to use!” that Mommy almost strangled herself with. And finally there was the ergonomically designed backpack that was more difficult to assemble than an IKEA EXPEDIT shelving unit. Mommy was forced to resort to the “idiot-proof” online instructional videos after your birth, but they were far too complex for her sleep-deprived brain. After three months of carrying you in her arms every waking minute of the day, Mommy finally struck gold with a borrowed sling that looks like a cross between Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat and the wallpaper in her great aunt’s bathroom. Mommy is now a prime candidate for
What Not to Wear: Maternal Edition
, but at least she can finally make a sandwich with two hands.

INGREDIENTS

½ ounce grenadine

1 ounce gin

2 ounces sweet-and-sour mix

2 ounces chilled club soda

½ ounce cherry brandy

Cherry

INSTRUCTIONS

Pour the grenadine into the bottom of a glass and fill with ice. Add the gin, sweet-and-sour mix, and club soda. Top with the cherry brandy, stir, and garnish with a cherry.

HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK

Sure, there are a lot of things Mommy doesn’t miss about being pregnant. Like heartburn, cankles, and three months spent hugging the toilet bowl. But pregnancy definitely had its pluses. Aside from the forty pounds of extra weight around her midsection, Mommy-to-be was a spitting image of a Victoria Secret model thanks to her double-D rack, luscious locks, and hormone-charged glow. Armed with her “baby brain” pass, she never had to sweat forgetting a best friend’s birthday or saying something stupid in a really important meeting. Now that you’re born, Mommy is yesterday’s news. She no longer walks on water and she’s finding it hard to cope. She’s wondering why all the nice strangers who used to run to her expectant side to open doors for her are always MIA when she’s struggling to jam your SUV-sized stroller through the tiny nonautomated Starbucks doorway without spilling half her extra-hot latté on your lap. The world could now care less whether you’re a boy or a girl; they just want to know what Mommy’s done to make you scream so loudly. Recently, she’s even caught herself longing for the unsolicited belly strokes that used to make her recoil. Now she has only your dirty diapers to thank for that.