The Trials of Bedtime and a Good, Stiff Drink

We are all slowly adapting to life as we now know it with our latest family addition. Sophia has been doing awesome and loves her little sister, but as expected, has been testing all of our parenting boundaries and rules. In my pop psychology, touchy-feely, I've-read-all-the-right-books, birth prep class intellect I know that this phenomenon is called "normalizing" but the rest of me wants to call it "Do as I say or I will shake you like a British nanny!" (That was a joke everybody. It is a little device we call... sarcasm. Please don't call any child protection authorities, ((by the way, Maria doesn't work there anymore.)) I'm not going to shake a specific cute little girl, although it has been very tempting the last few days.)

I have found the perfect device to get me through the preparing-for-bedtime-tribulation. It is called... the evening cocktail, and last night I perfected my recipe. I call it...
The Burning Ring of Fire. It is essentially a tequila martini, and here is the recipe for all you parents of toddlers out there.

The Burning Ring of Fire

1 shot tequila
1 shot vodka
juice of 1/4 lime
1 dash Tabasco Chipotle sauce
1 dash Tabasco Habanero sauce
1 drop liquid smoke (mesquite if you can)
fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
slice of lime for garnish

Mix chili powder and salt on shallow plate. Use this mixture to rim a chilled martini glass. In a cocktail shaker toss in ice cubes and add tequila, vodka, lime juice, hot sauces, and liquid smoke. Shake like a disobedient toddler. Pour into martini glass, garish with lime slice, and finish with a smidge of fresh ground pepper on top.

Warning: This is not your average pastel-polo-shirt wussy martini. It does not come with an umbrella. It tastes like kerosene distilled through a sulfur-fired blast furnace. It is deliberately designed to be strong, harsh, and uncomfortable to remind one that just like life, somethings are hard to swallow but the pleasant, lingering warmth afterwards makes it all worthwhile.