Sydney's Favorite Things: Mobiles and "Thumb" sucking

Sydney is now almost 12 weeks old and is definitely developing a personality and has many things she enjoys.  In general, she is quite an easy going baby and quite happy most of the time.  Lately she has been tracking objects and people very well and really likes anything that moves.  She also has decent head control in the seated position so it was enjoyable and easy for her to watch her daddy's basketball game yesterday.  She watched the players up and down the court tracking them all the way.  She made it through one and a half games, watching intently the whole time, before falling asleep.  (These were junior high games with 15 minute halves.)  She also tracks me walking around the room and has just started to notice Odin and loves to watch him walking around and wagging his tail.  She even smiled at him today, which is the first time I have seen her do that.  Most of her smiles are reserved for people.

Her most favorite thing to watch besides people is her mobile.  It is a "Jungle Babies" theme with a palm tree in the center and a fuzzy elephant, tiger, giraffe, and monkey swinging around the outside.  It plays Brahm's Lullaby song in a mechanical, music box-like manner.  The song quality is really not that great or soothing, but Sydney does not care.  She LOVES it!  When she sees it wiggle or hears the song start to play, her eyes get wide with anticipation and eventually her mouth becomes a wide smile and her eyes twinkle with delight. However, it does not serve its purpose of helping her off to sleep, instead it make her super excited and she fights sleep to watch the animals go around one more time.  So we use it during play time during the day instead. I'll try to get a video of this soon.

Her other new favorite toy is her ocean-themed play mat with fish hanging down to watch and hit.  They are just low enough that when she swings her arms in excitement she hits one from time to time and then she is really enthusiastic about the swimming fish.  There is also a mirror that I believe she enjoys as well.  I don't think that she has noticed yet that she kicks a ball on the other end every once in awhile.  The kitties have also taken a liking to this toy and have used it when she is otherwise occupied.

Watching the fishies

Loki wants to play too.

Odin wonders what all the fuss is about.

Loki is playing while Ender looks on.

She also enjoys Olivia the Owl who hangs out with giraffes over her pack n play.  The video speaks for itself.


Untitled from Cherilyn Wicks on Vimeo.

She played and kicked so hard that she fell asleep and turned almost 90 degrees.

Her other favorite activity has been trying to suck her thumb. Unfortunately her hands are not very cooperative and her thumbs usually stay tightly tucked into her little fists.  She is just figuring out how to get her fists to her mouth and then attempts to suck on them. At times, it looks like she will get her entire fist into her mouth.  As you can see by our title picture she has been doing this since birth by reflex, but is definitely more of a conscious effort now.  Usually, after a little while of trying to suck on her thumb but only getting a lumpy, too large fist, she gets angry and then Mom or Dad finds a pacifier to help with her sucking needs.  However, tonight she succeeded for the first time at getting her thumb in her mouth and sucking on it a few times.  Unfortunately for her and me, this was right after she had eaten and it was a surprise to her. She sucked on it quite vigorously causing her thumb to stimulate her gag-reflex which resulted in a baby volcano.  I initially thought that she had recovered from the gag, but poor Sydney's esophageal sphincter is not yet developed enough to hold down all that milk.  Apparently, this is becoming a Friday night affair since the last time we had a baby volcano was last Friday night right after we got to Jim and Beth's house in Iowa City.  Hopefully she learned from this and will be a little less aggressive with the thumb sucking next time.

In her cute Pooh PJs trying to suck her thumb.