In Lieu of Wine

On Monday, April 24, 2017, my wife Sonja and I welcomed our second child, Zooey Elizabeth Gudgel, into this amazing world. She arrived ten days late, took her sweet time coming out, and for a few terrifying minutes stubbornly refused to breath, but by that evening we knew that she was our perfect little daughter and that our lives were forever improved by the role she would play in them. A day later, after nine months of Sonja being on the proverbial wagon, I popped the cork on a nice bottle of vintage Champagne, filled two flutes, and was reminded of how much my wife and I enjoy sharing a glass of wine together. In the weeks since then, we’ve shared several more.