Book Review: Reasons Mommy Drinks

Reasons Mommy Drinks – A Book Review

So, there needs to be a reason?

Certainly not in my books, but in this hilarious book, Lyranda Martin Evans and Fiona Stevenson (Three Rivers Press, 2013) give 100 reasons that Mommies drink, along with 100 cocktail recipes (seriously ladies, you couldn’t come up with 365?!) that are almost as funny as the motherhood anecdotes after which they were named. I highly recommend reading it (and copying down the recipes!). It was a little tough reading a book about drinking during my annual month of detox, but then again, it was refreshing to recall all those ‘new mom’ experiences of new mothers – mostly because I’m well past that stage and can actually laugh at them now.

There is the cocktail aptly named The Silver Scream named after mommy’s first foray into humanity after childbirth at a Mommy and Me movie, or a yummy concoction called a Mudslide which follows a not so yummy experience with explosive poo. Well, who hasn’t had an experience with explosive poo and who doesn’t need a drink after it?

Of course nothing celebrates baby’s first steps like a drink called the Walk ‘n’ Roll, and nothing will restore your sanity after listening to children’s music all day, like the Raffi-tini, best served “with Baby Beluga caviar” – bwahahaha! (Oh, who am I kidding? I still have that song stuck in my head).

The book chronicles the first 18 months of motherhood and though I am now 18 years into motherhood, somehow I remember all those crazy, sleep-deprived baby days – and how badly I wanted a drink! Sadly, the book starts off with a series of mock-tails (buzzkill alert) until page 31, beyond the anecdotes of nursing. And sadly that’s pretty much how motherhood started in real life too, wasn’t it? I wish this book had been around when my first born was 18 months old and my second was already 4 weeks old. It would have given me great comfort (and great inspiration for cocktails!) to know that, a) I wasn’t losing my mind, and b) I actually was losing my mind but I was in very good company!

The only negative I have about the book was the ridiculously small print size. I don’t know my fonts – all I know is I needed my 1.50 reading glasses to read this book instead of my 1.25’s and that made me feel old. Feeling old sucks. Feeling old makes me feel like making a cocktail.

The Old Fart Work of Art

Ingredients

Sparkling wine, Prosecco or champagne
Crème de Cassis

Instructions

Pour a small amount of the crème de cassis in a chilled champagne flute
Top with sparkling wine then sit back and wonder where your teenagers are…    (somwhere..?)

—   Astra