Last night we found ourselves driving south in the moments right before twilight. The setting sun was to our right, a blaze of irridescent fuschia streaking up from the horizon fading as we drove. Above and ahead of us the sky was gray, nearly colourless, as if the glory in the west had bled the rest of the sky of its colour, gravity and the sun pulling it to the other side of the earth. As the sunset faded to a silvery orange, the indigo grew up from the east, deepening the sky above us with night until eventually it consumed the final faint residue of day in the west. It is reassuring to be reminded of the earth's orbit and constant rotation; it is good to remember that I am not the centre of the universe, as much as it may feel like it.

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In other news, Swee'pea appears to be categorizing people along lines of gender and age. Either that, or my interpretation of his language is. He's been calling his Grandpa Bapa for quite a while, and I was kind of embarrassed when he started exclaiming, "Bapa!" at every tall, gray-haired man wearing a hat and glasses he encountered. Surely he knew what his Bapa looked like?

Lately, though, I've noticed him exclaiming, "Mama!" when we encounter a young woman and, "Dada!" when we encounter a youngish man. I KNOW he knows those people aren't really his Mama and Dada, so it's begun to dawn on me that perhaps he's just noticing that they are people that bear some resemblance to us. He's been obsessed with babies, but now I've noticed he exclaims, "Bebe!" when we see anyone under about 12 years old.

I'm not sure what all this means in the grand scheme of things, but I find it fascinating.

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We went to see my brand new nephew this weekend, and the sight of Sugar D holding a brand new baby again set my ovaries atwitchin'. But only for a moment. He's just SO tiny and fragile and wobbly that I felt nervous again. I think maybe a newborn has to be my newborn to make me feel all in love. When we arrived he was sleeping all by himself, just sleeping, and I remembered how Swee'pea NEVER slept by himself at that age (in fact, it's still a relatively rare occurence). I have always thought it was because Swee'pea was a natural-born lousy sleeper who needed physical closeness. But now I'm not so sure. I wonder if it's because after his distress during my labour and all that fear for his life we just couldn't leave him be; we couldn't trust him to just live, his little chest rising and falling, without our constant watchfulness.