Wine when you have a toddler

                         To wine or not to whine?     

  

           
                                                       

    And the answer ALWAYS seems to be, to wine. I have struggled with my relationship with alcohol all throughout my 20s and 30s, and now it seems, I will be struggling with it throughout my 40s too. The amount of times in the last year that I have tried to give up drinking is embarrassing. I've done it every way I can think of. But it feels like I just can't do it. The wine witch is lurking around every corner, up every tree, in every supermarket and grocery store. 

    I am so jealous of my husband, who in his ... sophisticated, wiser years of life, finds alcohol makes him feel sick. He used to be the life of the party, and up until recently, would have 3 or 4 beers before anyone else had even got there. Now, he does not need to "watch his alcohol intake", because he doesn't even really like the stuff anymore! Oh, to be that guy. 

    Since I had my daughter, who is now 2, I find that I feel like I "need" to drink on a more regular basis, and I ask you, who with a 2 year old doesn't, but that after a drink or two in the evenings, trying to look after her the next day is so miserable that it's just not worth those two drinks, however much I need them. So I am at an interesting imbalance, rather like two enemies on a balancing plank; if either moves, both will become unbalanced, but both are desperate to destroy the other. So, as Wesley says in Princess Bride, we are at an impass. Okay, maybe my situation isn't quite as dramatic as the one between Inigo Montoya and Wesley the dread pirate Roberts, but I do feel trapped here. 

    Recently what has been happening is that in the week, I am able to control myself to the point where I don't go flying down the road to the corner shop as soon as Pickle is in bed to buy the cheapest wine I can find and come home to drown my exhausted, worn out self in the golden elixir. The problem with this is that I wait til Friday night, thinking "Hey, I got this kicked. I can drink or not drink tonight! Who cares? Not me!" and after Pickle's bedtime, casually swig down a few gulps, fully intending not to have "more than one", finding myself having "just one more glass, after all, it's Friday night" and I'm sure I don't have to tell you the rest of this re-ocurring story that ends in me stumbling off to bed. 

    Saturday is a write off, although halfway through the day I get excited at the prospect of finishing off that bottle of wine from last night, which I do, often with a cider or two thrown in, and then Sunday I just become angry, annoyed at myself, irritable and impossible to please. Which means I feel like I have to drink to feel better about myself again. 

    So this means that the two days that I have to spend with my family, Saturday and Sunday, are for the most part, spoiled every week, because of my struggle with this nasty substance. Something has to be done! (For the record, I tell myself this every Monday.) I am always tired and I am not my best after I've had a drink or two or five.

Here is that equation:

Me not giving my daughter mummy at her best + she deserves to have the best of everything = I need to change my drinking habits. 

This week, therefore, I shall endeavour not to drink any night, and this weekend, I shall limit myself to two nights of drinking, rather than three, and rather than anytime I feel like it (nap time! glass of wine anyone?) Because, all we can do, especially as a parent, all we can do is try our hardest. Right?

Thanks for reading

xxx