Other people

A. and I are friends with a couple who drink a lot. Who have a standing order at Union Square Wines, delight in finding new forms of booze from faraway places that you can't get your hands on unless pulling a variety of strings, and who have an eight-year-old daughter whom our girls enjoy playing with. 

We had brunch with this couple on Sunday at a neighborhood restaurant. Now as much as I would drink in the evenings, I can count on one hand the amount of drinks consumed in the afternoon. I am more of a drink, eat sleep kind of alcoholic.  Anyway, this couple drank a couple of glasses of white wine, a few bloody Mary's. Neither seemed particularly intoxicated, but when the natives (our kids) started to get restless and we decided it was time to leave, S, who had the wine, volunteered to take one of my daughters into the bathroom so she could pee (always a good idea with 4-year-olds - drain them before leaving any location). When C came out of the stall, she looked at me with worried eyes and said she was wet on her bottom. I lifted up her shirt to see that the back of her pants were soaked with pee. Now I don't know if it's because S was drinking too much, but she didn't pull C's pants down all the way when she put her on the toilet. I am standing there, wondering what the hell to do with pee pants when the temp outside is around 35 degrees and we have a 15 minute walk home. Meanwhile, my other daughter is in the stall now with S, and God knows what I'm going to have to deal with when the door opens. 

Long story short - remove pants, take off underwear, wrap in paper towel, try to dry pants in Dyson hand dryer, S is laughing, no big deal, I'm silently unhappy, C wants to go to the shoe store despite sodden pee pants. E has emerged from stall unscathed. 

This all got me thinking. How many times have I done stupid shit like this while drinking? And I'm not even talking about being completely pickled, just a little buzzed. Given that I haven't really had the opportunity, given that the girls were usually asleep when I was at my worse, there have been times at parties when we were with the girls where the defenses  would drop, I start feeling a little too relaxed, and I would depend more on A to make sure we all made it home in one piece. I remember those moments, I remember that little thought in the back of my head: You shouldn't be drinking right now. Not with the girls around. Because this isn't you - even if you are being kind and loving, this is not you. And the memories that you want your children to have are of one Mother - one personality - yelling or patient, sad or happy, because this is the kind of Mother who is present, warts and all.