My brother and SIL (yes, THAT brother and SIL) recently announced that they're expecting another baby. It was nice to greet that news with genuine happiness and not a months-long meltdown, I have to say.

Sometimes little things still nag at me. On Father's Day when they made their announcement at dinner with my dad and his family, we got in a discussion of all the babies born recently and how they've all been girls. We have Eleanor; my brother and SIL have Emma; my stepbrother and his wife have a two-year-old daughter. My dad said something like, "Well V [a cousin] has two boys, but she's the only one so far."

I said, "Well, we had a boy."

Silence.

It felt like it went on forever, but it was probably only a couple of seconds; then my dad recovered himself and said, "That's right, you did." And the conversation moved on. But that kind of sucked. I don't go through every day thinking about Joseph constantly any more, and I don't expect anyone else to, either, but I had the sense my dad had completely forgotten.