Hungover Mum Survival Guide

Isy - 24 Nov 16

https://mamaanddot.com

As Christmas approaches….who am I kidding? You aren’t hungover because it’s Christmas time, you’re hungover because you are a mum and you go out drinking so rarely that you have no ability to pace yourself. Me too. Here is my love letter to the hungover mum along with a handy step-by-step hangover survival guide….

Dear hungover mum,

I know it feels like you are going to accidentally vomit on one or all of your children at some point today. Perhaps you will. But it’s all going to be fine.

Yes, you are a mum responsible for one or more human beings but the only thing that differentiates you from a modern slave is that once in a blue moon you get supercharged pissed, paint on a smudged attempt at a smoky eye and neck your body weight in Cabernet. 

 The mum hangover is just one entry on the long checklist of ‘shit mums have to do’, it’s right below cleaning your child with your own spit and repeating the utterly inane sayings your mum used to say to you like, ‘take your coat off or you won’t feel the benefit’. You had to get drunk. You had to. 

What I’m trying to say is that all mums must tread the heavy path of the mum hangover, this is your destiny and you will get through it. To help you I have put myself through the gruelling task of getting shit-faced so that I could compile this list of how to get through hangover-mumming.

1. Have a shower. Lock the baby in a bouncy seat in the bathroom, throw some megablocks on the bathroom floor for the toddler, give them your mobile if that works. Yes, I know it seems tempting to languish in your crusty dressing gown but if you have this shower you will feel a million times better. The water unicorn will give you a head massage, the invisible droplet mermaids will massage your skin and the magic water will awaken your soul.
2. So you’ve had your shower and that demon is still hovering above your head waiting to pounce (the hangover not your child). I’m sorry that I lied to you. But if someone knocks on the door and sees your wine stained lips, back-combed hair and blotchy red eyes then this hangover would have been a whole lot worse. Now we move on to the most crucial step…
3. There is only one thing that is going to help you today and that is food. You need to eat as much of it as you can get your hands on. As sugary and salty as possible. Squares crisps, Fruit Pastilles, crisp sandwiches all swallowed down with either Dr Pepper or full fat Coke. FULL FAT. If anybody tries to tell you you can fix this sorry state by eating an avocado or slow-releasing carbs they are lying to you. They hate you and they want to see you fail, maybe because of something you did last night when you were pissed. Call whatever takeaway place is open at 11am, raid the frozen food, it doesn’t matter that you are gluten-free now or on the Atkins diet, your child’s future is resting on you eating all the carbs so you can last the day. It’s basically eat or die.
4. You will be surprised how many games can centre around you lying on the floor. I discovered this when I faced my own hungover-mumming catastrophe the other day. It went like this, ‘Dot, you be the Doctor and I will be the poorly patient’ – this one took very little effort. I just had to switch off my pain receptors and accept that in order to lie down I would have to take a repeated toy hammer to the face. ‘Dot, why don’t you put mummy and the dollies to sleep’ – again, an easy win. Yes, she went and got a washing up sponge and cleaned my face with that but I was I was willing to be wiped with a few soggy cornflakes, as long as I could lay down. Other lying down games involve pretending to be every type of sleeping animal – this depends on your child’s age, Dot seemed pretty captivated still when we were on animal number 26 ‘lets pretend to be a sleeping lizard’, and looking for things that don’t exist on the ceiling. For example, ‘Dot can you see the fairies on the ceiling? Come and lie down and I will show you’.
5. NAP TIME. Sleep now sweet parent, you have survived the morning but the battle for bedtime still lies ahead with all of the bloody war of dinnertime in the near distance. Rest your weary head, you will need to garner your strength. When your child wakes up it might feel like you haven’t been asleep, you have, it’s just one of those fun illusions, like when friends/family tell you that they will babysit your child when it’s born but then pretend they never said that and sort of ghost you. If your child doesn’t have naps any more then that is shit but I guess you know that already. Instead of napping you will have to go back to step 3, more carbs.
6. Cbeebies. There are some special television people who love and care for you, probably more than your husband who went to work and left you in this sorry state and your family who are refusing to come and watch your kids so you can die in peace. The little television person who loves you the most is called Mr Tumble. Mr Tumble is a really cool drummer in an indie band who has an ironic beard, travels by penny-farthing and eats in that trendy cereal restaurant in East London. But because he loves you so much Mr Tumble dresses up like a total twat and makes a tit out of himself so that you don’t have to parent your child. He has even created a secondary defence from parenting called Justin’s House, which has similar child-mesmerising properties. He has been given an MBE and when it was awarded to him the queen said, ‘thank you for bringing up the children of Britain’s hungover, feckless parents’. If you feel guilty because your child has watched far more TV than you would normally allow then eat a crisp sandwich and think about that time you took them to a farm/soft play/cinema and they behaved like the evil Gremlins and told you, ‘this is the worst day of my life’. Sometimes it’s better to stay inside.
7. Dinner time is coming. You can’t ignore it. It will come. They will expect food. Check the freezer, nuke any shit you can find in there, if it’s empty then make toast and tell your children it’s an dairy-free pizza. Or, feed them sandwiches and say you are having a picnic. I find as long as it’s framed right with a bit of pizazz around it people will fall for crappy food, that’s how TGI Friday’s is still in business.
8. If your husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend will be coming home from work soon then wait until you hear the front door open and run upstairs, get into bed and hide. They will have to parent the child/children because they will be downstairs with them and that is how the rules work.
9. BEDTIME. It’s good for kids not have a bath every night because of dry skin and actually that long story is really boring and also they could do with an early night. Just get them to bed, by whatever means necessary.
10. It’s time to go to…..zzzzzz.

Isy

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