How My Breasts Destroyed My Quest for the Perfect Gingerbread Martini

This is a cautionary tale. By God, nursing moms, do NOT let this happen to you.

With the light at the end of the two-kids-two-and-under-tunnel beginning to shine, and my refrigerator and freezer overflowing with enough breast milk to feed a small nation, I decided it was time to start treating myself to TGI(INSERT DAY[S] OF CHOICE HERE) drinks again.  Because if anybody needs a drink, it’s a mom with two small kids.  Or a mom with one kid.  Or somebody who knows a mom with one or more kids.

Yes.  We all deserve a drink.

So I dropped the kids off at daycare this morning and, as any respectable mother would do, I drove off in desperate search of a ton of liquor.  You see, I’ve been researching holiday cocktails for myself and this here column — tough work, but somebody’s gotta do it — and have become obsessed with a gingerbread martini recipe I came across:

1/2 ounce Monin Gingerbread Syrup
1 ounce Vodka
1/2 ounce Kahlúa
1/2 ounce Baileys Irish Cream liqueur
1 ounce vanilla milk
Whipped Cream
Graham crust for rim of glass
Gingerbread cookie

As Skye would say while rubbing her rounded toddler belly, yummy in my tummy.

I usually pump at some point in the morning, but I figured I could just swing by the grocery store — where I would spend no more than 20 minutes — on my way home and pump afterwards.  But you know what they say about the best-laid plans… they fall apart when you are looking for FREAKIN’ GINGERBREAD SYRUP THAT ONLY EXISTS ON PLANET NOWHERE.

I search the baking aisle.  The coffee aisle.  The special holiday baking displays at the end of the aisles.  The liquor aisle, where I get sidetracked by the SkinnyGirl drinks that are usually sold out, so I hastily grabbed one of each (margarita, sangria, white cranberry cosmo… Merry Christmas to me!).  I googled “Monin gingerbread syrup.”  “Aisle?” on my phone and got results suggesting the baking, coffee and liquor aisles.

“Excuse me, sir,” I asked the man restocking the butter and trying to avoid eye contact with me.  “Do you know if you carry gingerbread syrup?”

“Ginger-huh?” he replied, inspiring great confidence in his knowledge of their food products.  I tried a different approach.

“Do you have Monin in this store?”

Try saying that out loud.  [WAIT…]  Yes, I had just asked this gentleman if they had MOANIN’ going on at Ralph’s Grocery Store.  It sounded like a prank phone call Bart Simpson would make.  After another minute of back-and-forth confusion, he flashed me that apologetic look that never leads to anything helpful in a grocery store.  Before he uttered another word, I could feel my heart sink.

“I don’t think so, Miss, but maybe check the baking aisle?”

I forgave him for his cluelessness because he called me “Miss.”

While checking out, an older gentleman with three teeth hit on me.  Yes, this is the kind of man that hits on me these days. So, naturally, I flirted back and asked for his number.  Beggars with spit-up stains on her sweater can’t be choosy.  I left Ralph’s, my arms full of liquor, my aching breasts full of milk and my stubborn streak determined to track down the damn gingerbread syrup.

I googled “Monin Gingerbread Syrup.”  “Where to find in Los Angeles?” and got results suggesting BevMo, Smart and Final and Target.

No, no and — oh yeah! — no.

At this point, my cups runneth over with milk-filled boobage.  They hurt.  They cried out for mercy.   I loathed to return home — and to you — empty-handed, however, so I decided to check the State of My Breasts in the elevator to the Target parking lot.  I reached inside my bra… you ladies know where I’m going with this… and inadvertently squirted myself in the eye.

Which is pretty much the universal sign for:  Time to admit you’re not going to find the gingerbread syrup and go home to pump your breasts that could potentially be lethal if used as squirting arsenal.  Which means these are the only ingredients of which I am in possession right now:

Shameful, I know.  I obviously cannot make a gingerbread martini without — GASP! — the gingerbread syrup, so this post will have to be continued.  I hope to have one of these bad boys in hand as I watch this week’s Toddlers & Tiaras tonight.  Now that should make for a colorful, if not coherent, recap.

O gingerbread syrup, gingerbread syrup, wherefore art thou?  (If any of you have this elusive ingredient and are able to make the drink in the meantime, feel free to rub it in!  I’ll only hold a grudge while sober.)