A GIF Guide To New Year’s Eve As A Parent

I have been pregnant the past two New Year’s Eves, and I can tell you from personal experience that celebrating this awesome holiday either with child or as a new parent blooooows.

If you’re newly pregnant, you may mistakenly think you’re still cool. You may convince yourself that you haven’t morphed into a boring parent just yet and are still fully capable of soberly ringing in the New Year with all your drunk friends. Newsflash””there’s nothing that sounds less fun than that, especially if you’re a narcoleptic pregnant person, like I was.

As a new parent or an experienced parent, you may decide to get a babysitter for this fantastical holiday. Another newsflash””pregnant or not, you’re probably still going to be narcoleptic. Come 10 o’clock, you’ll be wishing you hadn’t blown your cash on six hours of babysitting and had hit the hay early instead. Once you’ve seen one ball drop, you’ve seen ’em all, amirite? (Insert “That’s what she said” here.)

So, parents, your New Year’s Eve this year may be totally boring, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Or, you may still have high hopes that you’ll be able to party like it’s 1999 and forget about your kids for one GD second. It may look a little something like this”¦

Sometime after Thanksgiving, you remember that an epic holiday is coming up. What was it called again”¦? New Year’s Eve, that’s right! Maybe this year will be the year that we do something SPECIAL.

It’s official. I’m going to go out in public on New Year’s Eve or at least invite a few friends over to get crunk after we put the kids to bed. Better go buy some champagne, and lots of it.

It’s New Year’s Eve day. It’s really happening!

I just got to the party in my expensive new dress that probably still has the tags on it. Better act cool so people can’t tell that I never go out anymore.

I’m just so happy to be here and to be talking to all of these TALL PEOPLE about anything besides poop.

You guys, it’s almost 11. I haven’t been up this late since college.

10, 9, 8”¦ THIS IS IT. I haven’t felt such excitement since my first child was born! Toast me, toast me, toast meeeeee!

Holy shit, I have to be up in six hours. My spawn rise with the sun. This better have been fucking worth it.

Whatever your New Year’s plans may be, boring or potentially awesome, my hat is off to you. Once you become a lame parent, it takes superhuman effort to be fun and cool again, and most of the time, it hardly feels worthwhile when you know your little creatures are going to wake you up before dawn anyway. One night of the year, cut yourself some slack, and remember””staying up past midnight is a pretty big deal in my book.