I have become adept at doing everyday chores and tasks with one hand while I hold a cranky baby in the other. Last night, for example, I heated up dinner in the microwave, ate, and cleaned up (including loading the dishwasher) all while holding a heavier-by-the-day Jonathan.

While I can get by with one hand, I’m not perfect at this. For example, it’s not uncommon to finish eating something and then looking down to realize that what’s on baby’s head is not dandruff or cradle cap but, in fact, crumbs from the piece of bread I was just eating.

Eating is not the only thing I can do with one hand. I have posted to my blog, taken pictures of babies, read the paper (turning the pages of a newspaper with one hand is not as easy as I imagined!) and emailed friends. Of course, typing slows from about 65 words per minute to about five words per minute (mainly because words will come out looking like “tyghkd” and I’ll have to start over again).

My biggest adventure was getting the mail with a baby in tow. Our mail box is a shared box that is across the street from our house. Our mail box is on the bottom and I have to stoop down to get the mail. Since we have been in the house for a year and we recently had babies, our mailbox is regularly stuffed with junk mail pushing mortgages, mortgage insurance, formula, diapers and all things house and baby. While trying to pull out the moutain of mail, I found out how difficult it was to pull out thirty pieces of mail while holding a baby. For a brief moment I thought about setting baby down on the ground but then I had visions of Andrea looking out the window and catching me – guaranteeing that I would never hear the end of it. So, I squatted in a catchers stance, placed baby across my thighs while my upper body folded over the baby and using both hands I was able to organize the mail in a way that I could carry it all home. I headed home with a sense of satisfaction that one gets after solving a complicated problem.

Simple victories folks.