Fuss bus isn't running today

Waking up to a fussy baby makes for grumpy parents. Especially those who like sleep. Even more so for those who work late into the night. JP has been a pleasant sleeper in past weeks, awaking anywhere between 4-6 for a snacky snack. Daddy-o, who loathes the sucking sound our offspring makes when he eats, has given the green light for in-bed feedings, which have helped tremendously. Imagine if YOU had to wake up every night, leave your warm and cozy bed and move to a scratchy, pillowless, blanketless couch to feed a squirming child. You, too, would relish in the small things, like feeding in bed. Occasionally, the little guy surprises me with a diaper filled with poop the consistency of melted peanut butter, which is always a delight to change in my dreary early-morning state.

So, Julian was fussy early, which meant both of us old guys were too. At the pending day at work, at the tossing and turning of the night before, and at each other, eventually. That's no way to leave for work, but that's how it goes sometimes when you've got a kid. Just as Julian forgets his fuss, so do we, for now at least. But irritability is contagious, so it will be back. We just have to remember to be kind to one another when it comes.

Troy died a year ago this week. It’s all pretty blurry to me because Ian and I were in the remote Canadian Rockies, so I didn’t find out for several days. The days in between his dying and my finding out are pretty eerie for me to think about. My best friend, and for a very long time my other half, had left this world, but I was still wandering one of its most beautiful pockets, pondering my life, this world and where I belonged in it. The stuff Troy and I used to ponder together. The stuff that, to a growing extent, Ian and I had started pondering. I’ve said before that was a true before/after moment, clearly not the only one I had last summer (cue Julian cry), and a year later it is something I think about every day, and some days, like today, every hour.

After a particularly moving “I feel Troy near me” moment today, I went out and bought Modest Mouse’s new album, “We were dead before the ship even sank,” and Voxtrot’s debut “Voxtrot.” One band old and very familiar. The other fresh, new. Hip, Troy might cheerfully disdain. Modest Mouse has been a particularly prevalent conduit between Troy and me this year, so in his spirit today, I bought the album that Troy never got to know. Voxtrot is another painfully hip, just-under-the-radar band that Troy thrived on listening to (read Of Montreal, Neko Case, Drive By Truckers, et al). I’ve decided each year, around this time of his birthday and his death day, I’m going to buy an album, book, movies, etc. that he knew and loved and I’ll also buy something new that he would have known and loved if he were here.

Doing this kind of stuff for/with/in rememberance of Troy makes being fussy seem a whole lot less, well, reasonable, as he’d say.