I'm not gonna lie—I've parented through a hangover more times than I care to count over the last 15 years. And let me just say this: It's no party (as opposed to the night before). In fact, I challenge you to find something than will leave you feeling #alltheregrets faster than a throbbing headache made about a billion times worse by the sound of kids repeatedly screaming your name at crack of dawn.
My husband and I did eventually manage to come up with a pretty stellar morning-after plan for dealing with our little devils, and it basically involved picking up a dozen doughnuts the night before and leaving them out on the kitchen counter with a few juice pouches. When the kids would wake up and come running into our room, we'd tell them they could have as many doughnuts as they wanted, as long as they didn't bother us for the next few hours.
Pretty brilliant, right? Feel free to try it. Works like a charm. And it will prevent you from having the kind of torturous day Australian blogger Constance Hall recently suffered through, as per her hilarious account on Facebook.
"Go out they said…. you only live once they said," Hall wrote. "Have they ever survived a hangover surrounded by deadly kids? They woke me up at 7. They came into my bed where I convinced them that iggle piggle on my laptop in bed would be living their best lives. They got hungry. I paid the oldest $10 to make the youngest breakfast."
Smart move! She then convinced her little ones that they needed ice cream, so she took them out for a few scoops and waited in the car while they played in the park. And while I am totally down with the fact that this crafty mama hid out in her vehicle—#respect—I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that she got up and dressed and out of the house in the first place. That's like, breaking rule #1 of being a hungover mom: Never leave your bed.
Of course, when Hall eventually did get her posse back home by promising them a surprise which turned out to be a nap, things began to spiral.
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"At one point 3 of them came at me crying at once, slowly walking towards me with their hands out," she explained. "I didn't know if I was having an acid flashback or the army of the dead had crossed the wall. I closed my eyes for 3 seconds and Rumi tipped a whole glass of water on my head. I ate. What they didn't eat, I ate. What they were planning to eat, I ate. I caught a glimpse of myself in my undies fingering the left over cheese out of their Le snack and sucking it off with more enthusiasm than I've ever shown a lover. It was a low point."
Hey, at least her sense of humor remained intact, right? And by the end of the day, when she was finally putting her daughter to bed, there was, alas, a moral to be found.
"Billie-Violet told me I was boring today," Hall explained. "I said, 'That, my girl, is why you shouldn't drink alcohol. It makes you really fun and then really boring.'"
You heard it here first, kids!
Hollee Actman Becker is a freelance writer, blogger, and mom of two who writes about parenting and pop culture. Check out her website holleeactmanbecker.com for more, and then follow her on Instagram
