To caffeine.
I’ve never been a coffee drinker, nor have I ever needed my daily caffeine fix. Until D was born. Then it all went steamrolling downhill. While I was pregnant I was very good about not consuming more than the recommended 200mg of caffeine per day. In fact, I rarely even came close to that if I had any at all.
But once that little bundle of joy arrived, I became hooked on iced hazelnut coffee drinks that R would make for us at home. Not because I needed them after all the nights of broken sleep, but because they were so sweetly delicious (and we use skim milk and sugar-free syrup so they’re actually not all that bad for us, either). With just the right amount of hazelnut I could barely even taste the coffee. 😉
Then I discovered that walking up to the Starbucks at the end of our street and down a block and back was the perfect route with which to return to the outside world once I was cleared for physical activity again 6 weeks postpartum. There I would get an iced venti nonfat light-ice chai as my treat for being a new mom. Hey, I just had a baby, why not celebrate with a tasty afternoon delight?
I ordered so many of those iced chai concoctions that I finally bought one of their reusable cold drink cups, and it has been my right-hand man ever since.
When I went back to work I knew there was no way I could spend $4.05 daily on my addiction, so I bought a palette of the Tazo chai concentrate at Costco (yes, a palette. i told you i was addicted) and just made my own at home each morning. That was in January, and I just finished my last box of chai last week. Wth am I going to do without my daily dose??
I decided I should probably kick this habit and not have R’s mom take us back to Costco so I could get another round (we don’t actually belong there ourselves, so we have to mooch visits off of her when we need something in bulk). I need to go back to actually eating breakfast instead of drinking it. So I’ve been trying. But damn, is it hard some days. I’ve slipped a couple hazelnut coffees in there, but they’re just not the same.
Then today, after having some lovely (read: boring!) oatmeal for breakfast, I started getting a headache. Just a slight twinge at first that steadily grew to feel like I had a small nail or other such device stuck in the back of my head. Hmm, I think I need some caffeine! For you see, you really can get addicted to caffeine, and you really can get withdrawal headaches. And no, I didn’t just make that up to make myself feel better. 😉
Sure as shit, my headache magically disappeared a few sips into that heavenly can of Pepsi Max. Ahh… relief. Guess I’ll just have to try again tomorrow. How dumb that I got myself hooked on caffeine. But hey, at least I’m not saying now where did I put my crack pipe…