The Boy has left the flat and is taking a flight to Russia for work. He will be away from tonight (Thursday night) and returning Saturday evening (12 April). Which means that I will be home alone with Baby-Ao!! :-O

This will be the longest time we’ve been apart since the birth of Baby-Ao – almost 48 hours! The previous record was probably 12 hours – once for work, once for a Man U-Liverpool football match in Manchester. This will also be the first time that I will be alone with Little Buddy (without the Boy) overnight, apart from Little Buddy’s very first night in this world, when I was in the hospital “alone” (with other new mums and nurses), but without the Boy, because I had heard that the first 24 hours are easy-peasy because the babies sleep all the time. WHAT A LIE that was! Baby-Ao kept waking up and crying every few hours, if not every hour.

I’ve been really stressed about this period all week. I’m afraid of being all alone at night – because the Boy is usually the one who gets up and pops the paci back in, or brings Baby to bed to be fed, whenever the Little Buddy cries in the middle of the night. I’m usually too exhausted or struck too deeply in my dreams to even muster the energy to move when the Little Bug cries at night.

I’m also stressed about having to deal with Baby-Ao 24/7… because sometimes he gets pretty grumpy and screamy. And when that happens, I send b*tchy emails to the Boy to share my grief, but I also find it easier to grit my teeth and bear it because I know that come 6 or 7pm, Daddy will be home to help calm Baby down (Baby-Ao is all smiley and on his best behavior with Daddy – he reserves his grumps for Mummy), bathe him, play with him to tire him out, change his nappy, and tuck him to bed. And Mummy can breathe a sigh of relief, take a breather to calm down after a day of entertaining Little Buddy, feeding him, changing him.

Nor am I looking forward to changing Little Bug’s nappies 6 more times than I would otherwise be doing! The Boy usually does the last nappy change before bedtime, the first nappy change in the morning, and all the nappies over the weekend. This time, I’ll be all alone, and have to deal with all this extra poop and pee. Not looking forward.

And obviously, I’ll also miss him… And I’ll be all alone at home at night… in a creepily quiet flat.

To alleviate my fears over the night-waking, I have ‘force-fed’ him today. In any case, I’m ramping his food intake back up because he’s been waking up earlier (pre-7am) in the morning, which he shouldn’t do if he has sufficient nutrient intake during the day. And I’ll also try to sleep early.

To mitigate my stress over dealing with a potentially screamy-baby 24/7, I have a bunch of (his usual) activities lined up on Friday – children’s centre in the morning, Gymboree class at 2pm, and Open Gym (part of Gymboree) at 4:45pm, so Friday is mostly sorted. Friday is generally a good day anyway, which is great because usually my nerves are frayed by the end of the week. And I’m having a friend over for brunch on Saturday morning, and I’m going out to meet a friend on Saturday afternoon, because Baby-Ao is very social and tends to be all smiley and charming in public (good at PR!). And even if he isn’t, at least someone else will be there to help entertain him, or at least keep me from bursting an artery.

As for the nappies… there’s nothing I can do about that. I’ll just have to ‘man up’ and suck it up! Boo.