INGREDIENTS
1 ounce vodka
4 ounces orange juice
2 ounces Dr Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Fill a glass with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir. Enjoy with an apple and WebMD.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy’s not sure how her pretty little house turned into Alcatraz overnight. Everywhere she turns, Mommy is intercepted by bars, latches, or clamps. Even the toilet seat is equipped with an industrial-grade lock. Mommy can’t get into anything these days without breaking a nail, spraining an ankle, or seeking help from an instructional video on YouTube. And the price for her CSI: Sesame Street home makeover? Seven hundred dollars and an entire weekend devoted to installation. Mommy thought nothing could be more excruciating than the hours she spent sifting through hundreds of Benjamin Moore paint chips and every issue of Elle Decor to land on the perfect off-white hue for every wall and piece of trim. Until she had to watch Daddy drill unsightly holes into half of the fruits of her labor to install baby gates that you’ll conquer in approximately three days. Not so long ago, Mommy would have thought that any parent who would go to such extreme precautionary measures to protect his or her child must be suffering from a severe paranoia disorder. Then she turned her back on you for five seconds last week and caught you halfway up the staircase about to empty the contents of her change purse into your mouth. Safety first: 1, Mommy: 0.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce Southern Comfort
1 ounce Amaretto
Dash of grenadine
4 ounces orange juice
INSTRUCTIONS
Fill a glass with ice. Pour in the Southern Comfort, Amaretto, and grenadine. Top off with the orange juice and stir. Dream about life on the outside.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
As adult birthday celebrations fade into oblivion only to emerge once a decade tainted with flamingos, over-the-hill cards, and awkward-for-everyone mooning incidents, birthday parties have come to entail sacrificing your afternoon nap every other Saturday to witness the ultimate battle for gold in the Mommylympic games. As your first birthday approaches, Mommy begins to panic. Surfing inspiration boards on Pinterest is the anti-help with its tiered princess cake recipes, twenty-three-step guides to hand-making party favors, and links to customized invitation websites with four-week delivery lead times. Banking on the limitations of your one-year-old memory, Mommy resorts to her only options at the eleventh hour: Evite’s first birthday party template, Dollar Store decor, and a supermarket cake. A year ago today, Mommy was in labor, but right now the only thing she’s giving birth to is a massive migraine. As a pack of wild wolves* descends on her house on party day, Mommy silently bids farewell to her pearl white couch cover while cursing the Italian who decided that pizza sauce should be red. After the festivities conclude with present opening, during which Mommy attempts to exude excitement upon opening yet another regifted copy of Goodnight Moon, you are exhausted, and for the first time in months you fall asleep in Mommy’s arms. Staring at you at that moment, it hits Mommy that her little baby is no longer a baby. Although her type A personality would normally propel her to hand you to Daddy and immediately launch into cleaning her tornado-ravaged living room, Mommy nestles into the icing-encrusted couch cushions and savors this moment a little while longer.
INGREDIENTS
4 ounces unsweetened cherry cider
1 ounce almond syrup
1 apple, peeled, cored, and cubed
1 pear, peeled, cored, and cubed
1 peach, peeled, pitted, and cubed
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all the ingredients in a blender with ice and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and consume while doing internal cartwheels because you’re not in labor today.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
*
* Fifteen children under the age of five and their parents.
In the latest installment of the dramatic series known as Mommy Is Essentially a Talking Barn Animal, the time has come to wean you. Weaning is the universe’s way of telling Mommy that the party is officially over: “Time to hand over that free boob job you’ve been enjoying. Oh, and don’t forget to pick up your period on your way out.” If busting out her 32B bra collection wasn’t punishment enough, Mommy also has to deal with Daddy gloating about the fact that she can no longer say things like: “Can you make me an elaborate four-course meal? I would do it, but I have to nurse the baby.” However, at least she can go back to the old standby: “Can you make me an elaborate four-course meal? I would do it, but I have girl-time cramps.” Thank God men don’t understand Women’s Troubles. As much as she’s looking forward to burning her Bravado bras, Mommy already misses nursing. It was that special thing that only she could share with you. She hereby promises to never be judgy about mothers who breast-feed their school-aged children again. Keep the party goin’ and the liquid a-flowin’, sisters!
INGREDIENTS
Chocolate syrup
½ ounce coffee liqueur
½ ounce hazelnut liqueur
½ ounce vodka
½ ounce Irish cream
3 ounces milk
Whipped cream
INSTRUCTIONS
Drizzle chocolate syrup around the rim of a glass. Combine the coffee and hazelnut liqueurs, vodka, Irish cream, and milk in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into the glass. Top the mixture with whipped cream. Now scrape off all that whipped cream because you’re no longer burning five hundred calories a day. “Moo!” (said angrily).
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
It’s clear the time has come for your ceremonial first haircut. Mommy’s been avoiding this day, but it’s not because she’s using you as a pawn in an elaborate gender experiment. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) (No, actually, there is.) It’s just that, thanks to the booming baby industry, any milestone in your life always makes Mommy feel like she’s got “I’m a new parent: Overcharge me” tattooed across her forehead. Mommy considered taking matters into her own hands until Daddy pointed out that anyone who outsources her own eyebrow maintenance shouldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors and an infant’s head. So now Mommy finds herself at what is known in yuppie Mommyland as a Children’s Hair Salon. It’s great to see that, despite the hefty price premium versus Magicuts, the family-friendly salon is equipped without changing tables (!). After changing you on her thigh and ruining a perfectly not good pair of jeans, Mommy asks the stylist where to dispose of your diaper. Mommy is given a look like she’s just asked Bret Michaels if she could shove the hot mess under his bandanna. Only less into it. At least Mommy leaves with a photo of you (crying) and a First Haircut Certificate (hot tip: they’re available free online), both of which will get prime placement in the “Look! I’m a great parent!” album that you’ll be forced to review on your thirteenth birthday. At which time, in a cruel twist of fate, Mommy will probably be begging you to cut your hair.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce pomegranate liqueur
2 ounces orange juice
3 ounces sparkling wine
Zest of orange
INSTRUCTIONS
Pour the pomegranate liqueur, orange juice, and sparkling wine into a Champagne flute. Garnish with the orange zest and toast to Alanis Morissette and the famous chopping of her waist-long locks.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy always thought the biggest challenge she would face as a parent would be a momentous one, like guiding your moral compass or steering you away from a career in the arts. Instead, her most significant parenting feat has been finding you a sippy cup that actually functions properly. Every one of the fifteen models Mommy has purchased yields the same result: you wearing a soaking wet “My Dad Is Rad” T-shirt, finger painting in a $6 puddle of organic milk. The fact that none of them works makes their complicated design all the more mind-boggling. Mommy could have taught you quantum physics with the energy she’s expen
ded digging through drawers in search of an elusive straw, lid, or flow valve. Meanwhile, the only cup you’re ever interested in is either a fragile heirloom filled with scalding coffee or one pried from the snotty hand of the kid at the park with the raging cold. Mommy needs her own sippy cup, stat.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce dark rum
½ ounce coconut liqueur
½ ounce coffee liqueur
1 ounce lemon juice
4 ounces pineapple juice
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine the rum, coconut and coffee liqueurs, and the lemon and pineapple juices in a shaker with ice. Shake well and serve in nature’s sippy cup: a coconut.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
If your recent obsession with electronics is giving you a head start on a lucrative career in electrical engineering, Mommy is 100 percent supportive. And she definitely appreciates that you helped her discover 90 percent of her iPhone’s functionality. She just wishes you could at least pretend to be interested in the mountain of expensive Playskool lying untouched on the living room floor. Unfortunately, your ideal toy these days meets at least two of the following criteria:
1. Has lots of buttons for you to press incessantly
2. If broken, will cost lots of money to repair or will threaten Mommy’s job security
3. Ceases to function when dropped in the toilet
Mommy thought she was doing the right thing by trolling the aisles of Target for a plastic phone that would distract you from hers. But, according to Wired, she should have spent that time embracing your iPhone fixation by downloading the top-rated app for babies. How else are you going to learn to speak Mandarin, get up to speed on the socioeconomic undercurrent in Sierra Leone, and figure out how to unlock the Angry Birds “Chrome Dimension” levels by the age of two? Truthfully, Mommy finds it a bit disconcerting that you’re already more tech savvy than she and that you and your cohort will render her generation obsolete by 2029.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce caramel Irish cream
½ ounce apple vodka
½ ounce apple schnapps
Slice of apple
Caramel sauce
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine the Irish cream, vodka, and schnapps in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with an apple slice and drizzle with the caramel sauce. When life hands you a toilet-water-damaged Apple™, make a martini.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Teething is the Get Out of Jail Free card bestowed to babies. Up at midnight, 2 AM, and 5 AM for a week straight, after you’d finally learned to sleep through the night? It must be teething. Bit Sofia’s finger at swim class? It must be teething. Bad case of baby PMS? It must be teething. If you actually sprouted a tooth every time Mommy uttered those four words, you could buy the family the 2020 Dodge Grand Caravan with the jackpot you’ve got coming from the tooth fairy. Mommy only wishes the misery ended when those pearly whites poked through your little gums. Unfortunately, even though they are merely standins, those baby teeth need brushing—a process that goes down something like this: Mommy comes at you with the Elmo toothbrush. You and Mommy play tug-of-war with the toothbrush. Mommy wins because she’s bigger. Mommy attempts to pry your lips open long enough to run the brush at least once along your top and bottom gums. You let out a bloodcurdling scream. Mommy loses because she has a headache. You lick the organic fluoride-free berry-flavored tooth gel off the brush and fling it under the toilet. Mommy gives up and adds baby gingivitis to the ever-growing list of things that keep her up at night.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce white crème de cacao
3 ounces milk
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: Thanks, everyone, for dialing in. As you can see on slide four—
YOU: DUCKA DUCKA DUCKAAAAAAAAAA!
CLIENT: Is there a fire alarm on your end?
ACCOUNT GUY: I think I hear a cat dying.
Mommy quickly turns on Sesame Street’s YouTube channel, even though it might give you epilepsy, and goes of
f the cuff because she can’t see her PowerPoint.
MOMMY: As you’ll see on slide six—
CLIENT: What happened to slide four?
You spill organic goat milk all over Mommy’s laptop. Sad Mac face appears.
MACBOOK AIR: BLEEEEEERRRRRRR!
YOU: BLEEEEEERRRRRRR!
ACCOUNT GUY: Seriously, is that cat okay?
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.
CLIENT: …clear out the dead weight, we’ll be in a great place. What do you think on your end?
MOMMY: Well … (fuuuuck!) … let’s circle back COB with some below-the-line ideas to maximize share of dollar (that sounds like Mommy has this under control, right?).
Total silence.
YOU: PPPFFFTTTTTTTWRRRAAAAPPPFFFTTTTTT!
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.
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.
Reasons Mommy Drinks Page 7
