Truly flying solo

I found out today that DH has to travel out of town for work on Monday. He won't be home until the middle of the night on Tuesday or on Wednesday morning. I'm pretty much freaking out. Can't decide whether I should hire a night nurse to help me out or simply go with it and see how things work. I mean, how many women in the world have managed twins alone? Plenty, for sure. One of my best friends has agreed to come over to help out during bath and bedtime on Monday night. I can probably find someone else to come over on Tuesday night, if need be. If I can just get them down for the night, I'll be fine. Making that transition from daytime to nighttime sleeping is the great challenge these days, typically involving several rounds of crying and soothing.

I am thinking the trick to managing this is to mentally prepare myself to be exhausted and at moments, very frustrated. I had one of those moments of frustration earlier today and started to cry while holding baby boy. DH had just left for a run -- the house was peaceful, with both babies napping in their cribs -- but baby boy started to cry uncontrollably. He'd been crying like that about 30 minutes earlier, off and on. I had hoped he'd sleep through his entire nap. But I think he's having gas pains, despite the baby gas drops we're giving him on a regular basis. So I freed him from his swaddle and the crib and brought him downstairs. As I did this, I started to cry -- feeling like a failure for "giving in" and worrying about what it will be like without DH. I wondered what he thought about my own crying. He actually stopped for a moment and looked up at me like, "What's wrong??"

Well, we will see how things go on Monday and Tuesday. I can do this! (I will keep telling myself this.) I think I can, I think I can . . .