I’m not a fan of the “Mommy Drinks” genre of cocktail napkins or blogs or memes or whatever it is “bad” moms exalt on Facebook to glorify the last “bad” thing they do.

Drinking a glass or two of wine a night isn’t really bad. Real drinking is tossing back a bottle of Vodka and throwing up in bed while your baby crawls around your passed out body. That— that —is a “bad” mommy. And they aren’t going to make a SOMEECARD about that kind of naughty. 

Anyway, let’s just imagine I’m holding up a bottle of wine, two glasses, and going, “WHO WANTS SOME CHAR-DON-AYYYYYYYY!”

THAT is the kind of drinker I am.

But how does one get the CHAR-DON-AYYYYYYYY!?

Because I don’t have a servant who can run errands for me and /or live above a distillery (dreams!), I sometimes have to go to the liquor store with my baby. And maybe even my son. Terrible, I know. This makes me feel somewhat like the neighborhood junkie, begging for change with a baby in her lap for her next fix. But I’m not, because I’m a 36-year-old quasi professional. And the liquor store is where the twain shall meet

“Nothing to see here!” I think to myself, as I pursue the aisles stashing wine bottles in the undercarriage of the stroller.

I wish I could say here that it is only one or two bottles. But it’s a lot of bottles — I only want to make a wine run once every two months and so I have to buy in bulk. It means, maybe, say, around 10 (just kidding … more like 20). And boy, do they clank, especially under a stroller. And people look. Because there is nothing more wholesome-looking than a sweet little baby being pushed around on top of 20 bottles of wine.

So, I shrug and kinda giggle, all the while feeling like Child Protective Services is going to pop around the corner and haul me away and put my children in baby jail.

But they don’t. And everyone at the liquor store is pretty helpful — they help me pick out bottles and look at the baby and (I’m pretty sure) don’t view me as a junkie. Maybe if I was a junkie, then they would call Child Protective Services on me. Maybe because I buy modestly-priced wine bottles and not mini-bottles of Everclear, I’m good to go. Maybe they don’t judge because I’m white and in a blazer.

All I know is, I am glad they don’t. Because Mommy really needs her wine.