Sadie and her binkie

I've been sitting at my desk trying to get caught up on some stuff, but I'm constantly distracted by watching Sadie with her binkie. She's just so darn cute when she's lovin' on her binkie.



And I was reminded that I took this series of photos of her a few weeks ago.

Ever since she was a puppy, Sadie has had a binkie. I used to keep a small fleece blanket on her bed when she was little, just to provide a little extra bit of snuggly for her. One day I found her sucking on the corner of the blanket and kneading it with her paws. It's a routine she's kept up to this day.

She almost always does it for a little bit in the early morning when we first get up, but she'll also do it periodically throughout the day during quiet times.

She starts out by taking a corner of it in her mouth and sucking on it while kneading it with her paws.



At first, she's usually pretty alert and watching things going on around her. When she first starts out, it sounds approximately like a hungry dairy calf going after a bottle (for those of you who never tried to raise six holstein calves the summer before you went away to school, you'll have to use your imagination...).



Slowly, her eyes start to droop and the sucking and kneading becomes less emphatic. Every now and then I'll hear a very contented sigh.



I love it when I startle her and her eyes fly open and she looks like this.



Sometimes she'll sit there just holding the binkie in her mouth, but it usually doesn't take her long to get back to business.



Then her eyes slowly start to close again...



Pretty soon her eyes close and the kneading stops.



On a really quiet day, she'll sit like that for a few minutes before falling over and going to sleep with the binkie still in her mouth.