Tongue Sucking!!!!!!

I was sitting in Relief Society (church) yesterday with Elle on my lap and the lady I sat next to glances at Elinor and goes, "Oh! She's a tongue sucker!" I'm like, "Wha?" She goes, "she is a tongue sucker, she sucks on her tongue to pacify herself."

After over 10 months of staring at this face:

a light bulb pops up above my head (or you could say a chorus of angels all went "aaaahhhh" around me -I WAS at church and all-). I said, "SO THAT'S WHAT SHE'S DOING!!" She said that most kids suck their thumbs or pacifiers, but there are a select few that suck their tongues like that. Her son used to (he did until the 2nd grade in fact).
Seriously! I didn't know such a thing existed. It never once occurred to me. The light bulb (or angels) kept it up that entire 45 minutes as things kept falling into place. You see, if you haven't spent a lot of quality Elinor time, you may not know that she won't take a pacifier, she just barely this week FINALLY drinks out of bottles, but hasn't until now, she also frequently does this sucking thing with her tongue sticking out a little. I always thought she just sucked way differently then any baby I've met and couldn't figure out devices such as pacifiers and the like. When she sucked nothing, I thought she was sucking, waiting for me to feed her. So suddenly, everything fell into place. She doesn't take pacifiers because she is happy just sucking on her tongue. The sucking of the tongue never looked like the normal sucking when she eats, but I never really gave it a second thought, but now it makes sense that it looks different. I refer to it as her "patented suck" since it is quite original looking. Babies frequently suck nothing in their sleep and stuff, but this is different then that. Elles does that too (although less frequent then most babies) and it involves more chin. She also almost always has this dark spot on the side of her tongue. Sometimes it isn't there, sometimes it's bigger, sometimes smaller. I asked Karen if that is why she gets that spot she said yes, it's a little bruise from sucking. I googled it once out of concern and after reading a few things came to the conclusion that it was a bruise from teething, but I wasn't totally happy with that answer since I noticed it months before any teething had taken place.

So anyway, I feel enlightened. Five minutes of getting used to the idea and I couldn't believe it had never occurred to me before. It makes so much sense, but like I said, I had never heard of this practice, so how can you think of something you've never heard of?

I had to add this picture cause she just looks so dang sweet. I was trying to catch her patented suck. As you can see- she has her blanket poised ready to do it.
She often likes the furry side of her kiki (or any furry blanket- yep, cookie blanket does her well-) to just touch the tip of her tongue while she is sucking. Karen said her son liked to do the same thing, but he liked satiny fabric.

So I've solved one enigma that makes up Elinor. Her one-of-a-kind suck isn't exactly one of a kind, just rare.
Love her.

FYI: if you ever google "tongue sucking" make sure you add the word "baby" cause you will get an entire other education without that simple word.