The difference between...

... hangovers pre and post children.

Pre? A minor and unpleasant inconvenience.

Post? Hell.



What, you want more detail? I can barely lift my fingers to the keyboard and you want more detail? Oh alright then. But only as a cautionary tale, a kind of Aesops' fable for the noughties.

Once upon a time there was a mildly Potty woman. She worked (more than) full time, and had a busy life outside office hours. Every now and again she used to go out after work with her friends or colleagues (or friends and colleagues), and get a little gazebo'd. (Click on the word for the reference if you don't understand...). The next day she would pull herself out of bed, after a particularly bad night unstick her contact lenses from the inside of her eyelids, go to work, moan softly into her keyboard and pray for the day to end. Which it would, eventually. Then she would go home. Or alternatively go out and do it all again. The End.

Fastforward a few years...

More recently there was a completely Potty Mummy. She used to be only mildly Potty but had pushed almost all of her sensibleness out along with her second child. (The doctors thought it was the placenta. Ha!). One day PM decided it would be a good idea to invite some friends over for dinner on. A. School. Night. (Cue scary music and screeching violins from The Shining).

Much white wine was drunk. Not as much as she might once have done, but definitely more than she was used to. Due to the large quantities of food consumed at the same time however, when she went to bed PM was convinced that she would probably be OK in the morning. (And now? Cue hollow laughter).

When she woke for the first time in the morning it was 6.10am, and Boy #1 was on a quest for a missing toy. Lifting her head from the pillow she realised, as the sledge hammer hit, that making an assessment of your own level of intoxication whilst still intoxicated the night before might not the be most accurate way of going about things.

When she woke for the second time at 7.00am she pondered the intransigence of the school run and worked out a cunning plan (based on her son's coughing fit the previous evening) how to negate it. Call him in sick. Of course! She closed her eyes.

When she woke for the third time at 7.30am and heard her perfectly fit and well and son rampaging through the house she realised that a) he was not sick and b) a few extra minutes in bed really weren't worth the subsequent need to deal with 2 rather than only 1 small boy at home during the school day, so she bit the bullet and swayed out of bed.

I won't bore you with details of the rest of the day, but I will just say thank god for Carbohydrates. They are only things getting me through this...