I’ll admit it. I drink wine in the bathroom.

I do it while I give my son a bath.

In my defense:

There is a particular time of day in the summer in the south that simply requires a glass of wine. It is when the heat begins to show mercy and the mosquitoes have not yet mobilized. When the sun paints the world in a soft amber glow and the breeze becomes more than a figment of the imagination. At this time of day, everything that you accomplished leading up to it seems good enough, and the optimism that you feel for tomorrow assures you the rest will get done.  Finally, fleetingly, your mind is quiet.

I am convinced that the birds in our backyard have their own happy hour at this time of day, mimicking ours, flitting from branch to branch, soaring across the big open sky, swirling and diving and singing.

There is a grill on somewhere, and those burgers smell good.

There are children playing somewhere before their mother calls them in.

There is an old couple rocking somewhere, on a porch, hands intertwined.

And there is a baby who is ready for bed. Who can control that? In fact, perhaps it is orchestrated that way, feeding into the magic of the moment.

The pure joy of putting my son to bed gives me a buzzy warmth independent of the robust red beside me on the tile. I turn the handle on the tap — he hears the water and comes crawling. In the tub, he is a babbling, splashing mess, and I am left to sip and watch in wonder.

We towel off – “we” being the operative word, as I am almost as drenched as he is – and brush teeth. We get him diapered and clothed and turn the nursery lights low. We settle into the rocker under a canopy of Twilight Turtle stars, and with his bottle and my glass, we cheers. We are alive and happy, and our hearts (unlike said glass) could not be more full.