It's funny, because when we started this company, I knew that I was someone who enjoyed a cocktail or alcoholic beverage from time to time, but as the years have passed and my kids have gotten older (read: louder) it occurs to me that drinking is so much more calming than I ever even realized.

I guess at a certain level of intake it should not be considered that.  Calming, I mean.  But there are days when the screeching from my 5 year old daughter makes it such that no "mommy needs a time out" or "please leave mommy alone for just TWO SECONDS!!!" seems to do the trick.  And in those moments, I whip out my jigger.  I look to see what I have in the fridge.  I breathe and take a moment (even if she's still screeching).  It seems even the very act of CONTEMPLATING a cocktail enables me to tune her out just enough that I can have a coherent thought.  It's always (okay, almost always) after 5pm because the witching hour is a real thing.  

{Side note: something I don't understand:  kids and school feedings.  I give them breakfast at 7:30.  School gives them snacks at 10.  Lunch at 11:47 (seriously).  Then NO FOOD for three hours until I pick them up.  At which point...let the screeching begin.   Duh.  Because their tiny minds are being taught to eat every two hours.  They're the Little Shop of Horrors plant by the time I get them at 3.  Gee, thanks, school.  But then, I guess school was keeping them out of my sight safely for 7 hours so who am I to complain?}

So that's what I do.  A cocktail can make the screechiest screeching tolerable. It's like I get to be in my own mixology universe distilled just for me.

Not to blame them and say that I drink because of them, because of course it's not really that simple.  I just find that previously, my reasons for enjoying a cocktail and the actual enjoyment I got out of it was just different.  That's all.  Or I blame them.  Completely.  You can decide.  I've gotta go mix a drink.