{"id":559,"date":"2011-03-10T09:01:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T09:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html"},"modified":"2011-03-10T09:01:52","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T09:01:52","slug":"productivity-and-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html","title":{"rendered":"Productivity and Babies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/mail_2.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail_2.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/113\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg\" width=\"200\" height=\"267\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span>I held her in my arms, noting the changes. Her bottom eyelashes are beginning to grow. Her hair is starting to fall out. The baby acne is drying up. She wakes up to play now. Her eyes follow me or her siblings or her father. She reached up and grabbed a ring today.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I held her in my arms, swaddled tight. She squirmed and sucked on her pacifier. And I knew it would be a while&#8211;ten minutes, maybe twenty&#8211;before she would be ready to sleep on her own. I rocked her in my arms until she quieted, but I wanted to hold her for a while, just to be sure she&#8217;d stay asleep when I put her down.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I thought about what I could do while I was holding her. I couldn&#8217;t write an email or a blogpost. I couldn&#8217;t clean the kitchen or return phone calls or pay bills or do the laundry. I could read a novel or a magazine, something that didn&#8217;t demand all of my attention, something that didn&#8217;t require a full night&#8217;s sleep. I was disappointed. Yet again, nothing would be accomplished and soon it would be time for me to sleep on my own.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And then I realized&#8211;I had it all wrong. Upside down. Holding Marilee was the productive thing. Holding her, steadying her, helping her settle into sleep&#8211;that was the thing to do. The only thing.&nbsp;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I held her in my arms, noting the changes. Her bottom eyelashes are beginning to grow. Her hair is starting to fall out. The baby acne is drying up. She wakes up to play now. Her eyes follow me or her siblings or her father. She reached up and grabbed a ring today. I held&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Productivity and Babies - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Productivity and Babies - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I held her in my arms, noting the changes. Her bottom eyelashes are beginning to grow. Her hair is starting to fall out. The baby acne is drying up. She wakes up to play now. Her eyes follow me or her siblings or her father. She reached up and grabbed a ring today. I held&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-10T09:01:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Productivity and Babies - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Productivity and Babies - Thin Places","og_description":"I held her in my arms, noting the changes. 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I held&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2011-03-10T09:01:52+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg"}],"author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html","name":"Productivity and Babies - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg","datePublished":"2011-03-10T09:01:52+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-10T09:01:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/mail_2-thumb-200x267-21885.jpeg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/productivity-and-babies.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Productivity and Babies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}