The other night, I went out to dinner with some coworkers. We had a lovely time – discussing company policy, getting to know our colleagues in other divisions, eating a fine Italian meal and sharing 15-25 bottles of expensive Italian wine. All on somebody else’s dime. It was a lot of fun.

I ended up getting home at about 1am, pretty decently smashed, and crawled into bed beside my wife.

About an hour and a half later, I was jarred awake by a combination of my wife’s sharp kicks and the loud cries of a wailing baby. It was time for my middle-of-the-night bottle shift, designed to allow my saintly wife a few consecutive hours of sleep before she was forced to latch the beast to her breast yet again. So I lugged the little meatsack out of the bedroom and proceeded to feed him, as quietly and quickly as possible, all whilst in a drunken haze.

Let’s, for a moment, put aside the terrfying ramifications of Yours Truly stumbling around in the dark, drunk, blind and oblivious, with a month-old baby cradled in my arms. This isn’t about my baby and the fact that he may or may not have been in danger. This is about ME.

The next morning, having both partied til the wee hours and performed the duties of a responsible parent, I woke up and went to work, hungover and exhausted. Now, being hungover and exhausted isn’t exactly a new experience for me; I went to college. But being hungover and exhausted as a parent, well, that’s some groundbreaking shit.

Let’s, for a moment, put aside the terrifying ramifications of one day waking up with an energetic toddler to take care of. Toddler’s require vigilance, not to mention entertainment, neither of which is easy to provide while sporting a killer headache and booze breath. Stay tuned for a post on that topic, provided I still have the time, willpower and interest to write one in two years or so.

Back to the present.

After a month of no sleep, a night spent drinking – a worknight, no less – is not a good idea. When you have a baby, the possibility of ever catching up on a backlog of New York scumbags – sorry – John McClane’s life, not mine – the possibility ever catching up on a backlog of missed sleep just plain does not exist. So the hours of sleep I missed, and the pointless few hours of alcohol-hazed non-sleep sleep that I did manage to get, were compounded by all the hours I’ve missed over the past month, thereby transforming a typical workday hangover into a week-long slog of punishment.

Long story short, I still haven’t recovered from one night of drinking six days ago. And I hate myself for it.

But I’d better get used to it, because as hard as it is to deal with a baby when I’m hungover, it’s a lot easier than dealing with a baby when I’m sober.