Reasons Mommy Drinks (25 page)

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 expended 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:

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 stand-ins, 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