INGREDIENTS
½ ounce pineapple rum
½ ounce light rum
6 ounces lemon-lime soda
INSTRUCTIONS
Chill a cocktail glass and fill it with ice. Add all the ingredients and stir. Enjoy while celebrating the fact that you can wear pajamas 24/7.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
When Mommy was pregnant, she was basically living in a Pantene commercial with her long, luscious locks. For some wonderful reason, nature offsets swollen ankles and stretch marks with thick, lustrous hair. It was a Rapunzel-fest. But now it’s Meet the Klumps in her shower drain. She’s finding hair everywhere—her clothes, the furniture—and her hairbrush looks like a hamster got caught in it. Today she found a strand wrapped around your pinky finger, cutting off your circulation. Apparently Mommy is losing up to five hundred strands a day. She feels like G.I. Jane’s flabby postpartum sister. Remember when Sinead O’Connor shaved off all her hair, then went postal on Saturday Night Live and tore up a picture of the pope? Lack of hair can make women go crazy. Maybe Mommy should go to the salon and get a fresh new do with all her massive amounts of free time. HA HA HA HA HA. Mommy’s choices now are to just hack it off or buy an array of scrunchies. Mommy’s laughing on the outside, but on the inside, those tears are shed as fast as each much-missed strand.
INGREDIENTS
2 ounces gin
Splash of lemon juice
Dash of Tabasco sauce
Slice of chile pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well, strain into a glass, and garnish with a pepper slice. Enjoy with a nice hat.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
When one of Mommy’s parents does something that makes her blood boil, at least she can vent freely to Daddy, knowing that he’ll always take her side. When Daddy’s parents are around, it’s a different story. Mommy feels compelled to play the part of perfect mother, doting wife, and competent household manager, not to mention hostess extraordinaire. This would be challenging in the best of times, but it’s virtually impossible when Mommy is hormonal and sleep deprived, particularly when Grandma can’t help but insert her opinion every five seconds. Though Mommy appreciates that the stove is finally being used, she longs to be passive-aggressive with Daddy, watch back-to-back episodes of Homeland, and not have to dress you in a fuzzy bear bodysuit because Grandma is convinced you’re on the verge of hypothermia in July. Meanwhile, ever since Grandpa accidentally walked in on Mommy breast-feeding, he will no longer make eye contact. With anyone. Sometimes Mommy thinks it’d be easier if Daddy’s parents lived on a remote island off the coast of Mozambique, but when you roll over for the first time, Mommy can’t wait to Skype them with the news. If only they understood The Internet.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce sloe gin
1 ounce lemon juice
Splash of grenadine
Club soda
INSTRUCTIONS
Chill a cocktail glass. Pour in the gin and lemon juice. Add the grenadine and top with club soda. Garnish with an olive branch.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Angelina Jolie. Natalie Portman. Beyoncé. It seems like all of Hollywood can pop out a baby and look effortlessly malnourished the next day. Mariah Carey shit out twins and eight minutes later was the nude spokesmodel for Weight Watchers. Mommy wishes she wasn’t still living in her Gap maternity jeans, but unfortunately she doesn’t have a personal trainer or a weight-loss-inducing habit like heroin. According to Mommy’s number-one online news source, People.com, movie-star matriarchs insist that the secret to losing the pregnancy weight is “carrying around a baby all day!” Mommy knows this is celebrity-speak for bulimia, because no Alister carries her own child. Plus, Mommy actually does carry you all day and the only thing she has to show for it is a herniated disc. Though Mommy admits she loves that her new double Ds look like they were done by Dr. 90210, she sometimes longs to look glamorously on the brink of death like Too-Posh-to-Push Spice.
INGREDIENTS
3 ounces pink Moët
½ ounce Grand Marnier
½ ounce lime juice
2 ounces orange juice
INSTRUCTIONS
Chill a Champagne flute and fill it with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and gently stir. Enjoy every caloric sip, unlike actual celebrities, who subsist only on air and the perpetual need for validation.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
It’s not just the coke-thin Hollywood moms that give Mommy a complex. The celebri-tots look just as glam being carried by their nannies and dressed head to toe in Burberry Baby. Mommy shops off-the-rack (the sales rack) at H&M Kids in a futile attempt at Keeping Up with the Kardashi-babies. At least she can take comfort in knowing that those Tiffany silver spoon–fed babies have the worst names ever (“Son, we named you after a paint color”) and that their careers will peak on the reality show My Mom Was a Celebrity and Now I’m in Rehab, premiering summer 2037. Besides, Mommy is on trend since having a baby is “the hottest accessory of the season” according to In Style. It’s just that sometimes she quietly wishes she also had a Birkin bag to tote your diapers in.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce light rum
1 ounce coconut liqueur
3 ounces guava juice
Splash of grenadine
INSTRUCTIONS
Fill a glass with ice. Pour in all the ingredients and stir. Enjoy while finally reading that 2012 issue of People you found jammed in a drawer. Wait, Poehler and Arnett broke up? NOOOOoooooooo!
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
As Mommy nurses you at 3 AM in front of Lifetime, it occurs to her that every labor scene in every movie ever produced is total bullshit. Real labor lasts for what felt like eight years, but in the movies there’s always a mad rush to the hospital and the baby’s delivered with only minutes to spare. Also, every birth scene is scripted with the following dialogue:
WIFE: Drugs! Give me the drugs!
HUSBAND: Remember to breathe. Hee hee ho. Hee hee ho.
WIFE: You did this to me, you bastard!
Despite her pleas, it’s always “too late” for the epidural. After three pushes that look less challenging than introductory Pilates, out emerges the “newborn,” plucked from an Anne Geddes calendar and looking six months old. In the biopic about Mommy’s life, she’s pretty sure the scene that comes next—where you’re screaming and she’s sobbing as she attempts to latch you to her throbbing boobs while perched on a bag of frozen peas—will end up on the cutting room floor.
INGREDIENTS
5 fresh strawberries
4 fresh basil leaves
Squeeze of lemon
½ ounce simple syrup
1½ ounces vodka
3 ounces club soda
Wedge of lemon
INSTRUCTIONS
Muddle the strawberries, with green leaves removed, and basil in a mixing glass. Pour in the lemon juice, simple syrup, and vodka. Transfer the mixture to an ice-filled glass and top with club soda. Stir and garnish with a lemon wedge. Pour yourself one just before the scene where the protagonist slips back into her size 0 wardrobe the day after she gives birth.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy used to have the emotional resolve of Helen Mirren in The Queen. Now she cries when she misplaces her Lip Smackers. She’s not sure if it’s hormones, sleep deprivation, or Beatrix Potter books that have caused this new psychosis, but she’s become annoyingly sensitive. The following may have made her cry this week: Being put on hold. The zoo. Socks you’ve outgrown.
Even the wrong tweet can send her into a tailspin of tears, so she had to unfollow Miley Cyrus. The other thing that can cause her to explode into hysterics is this: absolutely nothing. She’s an emotional ticking time bomb and Daddy’s in the trenches. If he has any chance of coming out of this alive, he needs to learn the following phrases ASAP: “Cloud White and Decorator White are compl
etely different colors,” “Let’s hire a cleaning lady,” and “My mother is being unreasonable.”
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce gin
3 ounces tonic
Splash of grapefruit juice
Zest of lemon
INSTRUCTIONS
Cry me a river of booze by bringing sexy back to an old classic. Fill a glass with ice. Pour in the gin, tonic, and grapefruit juice and stir. Garnish with lemon zest and a box of Kleenex. It’s hormonal happy hour!
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Before you were born, Mommy used to splurge on the season’s latest handbag. Now she admonishes such extravagant spending and can regularly be found pillaging the sales rack at Old Navy. Her adorable Chanel clutch has been replaced by an oversized Skip Hop messenger tote which, like you, she carries everywhere. What it lacks in style it makes up for in cubic volume, stuffed to the brim with everything from depleted Starbucks cards to Baby Mum-Mum wrappers. Also in tow are a half-dozen backup Onesies in preparation for the diaper explosion that will inevitably happen five minutes after leaving home. At which point Mommy will realize she’s down to her very last wipe. Mommy is painfully aware that she’s headed down a slippery slope lined with sensible shoes and high-waisted denim, but the stench of your dirty diapers has fried the parts of her brain responsible for pride and personal care.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce gin
1 ounce coffee liqueur
1 ounce cream
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with cracked ice. Shake well and strain into a crystal martini glass. Take off those mom jeans and remember what Coco said: “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous” (read: not wearing front pleats).
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
If it wasn’t for the fact that Daddy needed the Corolla today, there is no way Mommy would subject you to this underground hell to get to Gymboree. On public transportation, all common decency goes out the emergency glass window. Suddenly people think it’s okay to clip their nails, eat a falafel, and hum in public—and that’s all done by the same person. Not to mention the sweaty man next to you who missed the memo on soap and water as basic tools of life. At least you have more teeth than he does. The tweens at the end of the car are dressed like Nicki Minaj, reek of Marlboros, and are swearing like they’re on an HBO special. Mommy silently prays you join the Mathletes. All this stimulation is too much for your tiny brain to process and you won’t stop screeching until Mommy picks you up. Even though she’s holding an infant while careening through a tunnel at fifty miles per hour, no one offers Mommy a seat, and she refuses to hold the pole because of the 412 strains of bacteria it’s harboring. “The next station is Nervous Breakdown.” Despite the fact that Mommy is struggling to push the Bugaboo with one hand while holding you and your diaper bag with the other, no one clears a path as she tries to get off. Mommy manages to claw through the throngs of people like Moses parting the Red Sea only to discover this station doesn’t have a working elevator. Thud thud thud. Mommy drags you up 478 stairs and gives you mild whiplash while no one offers to help. Slow clap for humanity.
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce of rye, rum, vodka, or gin
4 ounces fruit punch
INSTRUCTIONS
Fill a glass with ice. Pour in your bar rail of choice and fruit punch, and stir. Unlike the guy sitting next to you, don’t consume out of a paper bag.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy used to get shit done. Now she gets shit on. How does such a tiny person consistently produce so much volume? It gets in every little crevice down there. It goes up your back. It goes down your legs. It goes sideways? First it started out as sticky black tar. Then the mustard stuff. Which, in hindsight, wasn’t so bad. Mommy didn’t realize how good she had it when you were exclusively fed breast milk. Now that you’re eating solids, this shit is getting real, fast. The inaccurately named Diaper Genie isn’t very magical at all because the smell permeates the whole house. Unless, at the drop point, someone (read: Daddy) quickly runs the hot mess to the green bin outside. There’s no waiting for Daddy to get home though, as The Situation must be dealt with immediately lest you get a diaper rash. But oh, the horror that unfolds with the diaper. No one accurately prepared Mommy for this, and there are some triple-poo days when she actually throws up in her mouth a little. Of course, Mommy tries to remain calm, even when you drop a deuce in the bath, or in the Jolly Jumper, or on the wall, or OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT IN MOMMY’S HAIR? Shit.
INGREDIENTS
Chocolate syrup
½ ounce vodka
½ ounce coffee liqueur
½ ounce Irish cream
Splash of milk
INSTRUCTIONS
Drizzle chocolate syrup around the inside rim of a glass, and then fill the glass with ice. Pour in the vodka, coffee liqueur, Irish cream, and milk and stir.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Sometimes your explosive poo becomes even more explosive. This means you’re sick. Even though Mommy struggles to remember a two-week stretch in your existence where you weren’t exhibiting some symptom of illness, seeing that first trickle of green snot oozing from your nose still sends her into a tailspin of hysteria. Cue obsessive WebMD surfing and an exponential increase in the number of orders barked at Daddy. The Internet is never wrong, so she confirms that you have West Nile Virus. After a four-hour trip to the emergency room, it turns out it’s just a common cold. Now Mommy is faced with the moral dilemma of whether to quarantine you at the expense of her sanity or drag you and your germs to music class, where you’ll undoubtedly lick multiple tambourines and shove your snot-drenched finger into any open infant mouth within reach. Mommy chooses the latter, armed with a story involving allergy season if challenged.
INGREDIENTS
1 bottle cold ale
Shot of tomato juice
INSTRUCTIONS
Pour the ale and tomato juice into a pint-sized glass. Chase with echinacea.
NOTE
Cheers to your health (while you can, because guess what? You’re catching that cold tomorrow).
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy Brain: noun ’mä-mē ’brān. A phenomenon whereby a mother’s previously sophisticated cognitive capacity rapidly diminishes to that of an ousted Bachelor contestant. Fueled by chronic sleep deprivation, overexposure to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and speaking exclusively in nonsense syllables and baby talk, the condition is characterized by the sufferer’s inability to perform previously routine tasks such as matching a skirt and top, finding her phone in her purse, and reading anything other than PerezHilton.com without needing to consult her Dictionary app. The condition can be reversed, in theory, when the sufferer’s offspring embarks on fourth-grade math and she is forced to figure out what the fuck long division is all over again.
INGREDIENTS
Blue curaçao
Sugar
¾ ounce Amaretto
¾ ounce melon liqueur
INSTRUCTIONS
Chill a glass. Rim it with blue curaçao and then sugar. Fill the glass with crushed ice, pour in the Amaretto and melon liqueur, and stir. Serve with a blank stare.
HOW BADLY YOU NEED THIS DRINK
Mommy has never spent more time at the mall than she has while on maternity leave. The spacious family washrooms, climate-controlled promenades, and stroller-friendly food court make it Disneyland for Maternity Mommies. The irony of this is that Mommy has never been more broke; however, she can’t resist falling into Baby Gap. Price check: This miniature pair of skinny jeans costs more than the pair Mommy’s wearing. Mommy’s maternity-leave benefits barely cover a Mega Mango Jamba Juice, but Visa will cover this argyle sweater vest with skull-and-crossbones embroidery. A bear riding a motorcycle? On a Onesie? Clearly you need to own this. (Sociopolitical pause: Mommy really hopes that these clothes weren’t made by children not much older than you.) Oooh, little shoes! Mom
my will buy several pairs, because you can’t walk yet, so that makes perfect sense. Mommy’s closet looks like the “before” segment on Extreme Makeover, but your wardrobe could be a photo essay in Vogue.
INGREDIENTS
½ ounce cherry brandy
½ ounce light rum
½ ounce dark rum
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.
Reasons Mommy Drinks Page 3