Where is Nurse Patty when you need her?

My mother, who came out the day before Tiny Boy's birth, is leaving tomorrow.

I have a very clear memory of me standing in my apartment doorway holding a 12-day-old LG watching my mother leave for the airport--crying.  Feeling abandoned, overwhelmed, and scared.  The next day I had to have a friend drive me 45 minutes to the doctor to have my oozing c-section incision checked.

So here we are, minus the nasty incision, plus some new bleeding (uhh, I thought I was done with that DAYS ago) and an almost-8-year-old who needs to be taken to school every day.  And did I mention me screaming for my mother last night when I swear Tiny Boy stopped breathing when he choked on the milk he forgot he was drinking?  Long seconds of baby turning beet red and then white.  Thankfully, he coughed some up and after some rigorous back-patting started crying again, but there I was holding my 13-day-old son sobbing he's just so little with my now prodigious left breast hanging out of my bra.

That brings me to the real subject of this post:  what happens tomorrow when I take over all responsibilities as a single mama to two?  I think generally I'll be able to handle it; the almost-8-year age difference can be wonderfully helpful.  I mean, LG reads to her brother.  She can get herself dressed and ready for school, and she's fully capable of fetching blankets, minuscule hats, and whatever else her brother needs.  (She also accosts him with a pacifier, because she thinks he must use it, even though he shows a clear preference for his own hand, but I digress.)  But I also know myself, and I know that my inclination will be to overdo it.  To freak out because the house is a mess (my mother is many marvelous things, but a neatnik she is not).  To run too many errands.  To use Tiny Boy's naps for writing and dealing with the neverending odds and ends of my job. 

I also know I am easily frustrated and don't deal well with hours of crying...not to mention chronic sleep deprivation.  Thankfully, Tiny Boy seems to have nights he can go hours at a stretch without waking (although at least until his 2-week checkup, I need to set an alarm every 3 hours to nurse) but he also has nights (last night) when he wakes hourly or decides to take a 2-hour wakeful period around 2:00 am, during which he needs to be held, rocked, etc, so he doesn't wake up the entire household. 

I guess I won't know what it's like--this whole single mom times two thing--until I have to do it.  So:  sometime this afternoon or tomorrow morning I need to take my first venture into the driver's seat, sans baby (it freaked me the fuck out to have to drive LG to the doctor as my first trip back in a car after surgery).  I feel much better than I thought I would, but I really have limited my activities with my mom's backup.  It's only been the past couple days that I even attempted carrying the baby up and down the stairs.  I might need to practice getting the baby in his stroller and down the stairs and walking LG to the bus stop, to see how long it takes (frankly, I think I'll be driving her a good many days so I don't have to get me and a baby dressed and out the door by 8:02 on the dot).  I'm sure there are many challenges I haven't really thought of.  Because from everything I've been told adding one child multiples the level of complexity by much more than two.

I know I'm lucky that I've had great backup so far.  I spent five days in the hospital, during which time I deliberately kept Tiny Boy in the nursery at night so I could get a modicum of sleep between blood pressure and incision checks and feedings.  And since then my mother has done the brunt of the housework and tending to LG, and we've had colleagues/friends stopping by with food (which is awesome, and I am quite grateful, but I sort of wish they'd waited until my mom left and I made my way through our own Thanksgiving leftovers).  And now it's me, more or less without a safety net.

I guess that's the way it should be.  Finally having my life the way I want it.  As a tenured (?!) professor/single mother to two, on the cusp of 39.  I will say it again:  it seems 2011 didn't suck after all.