Eyes to See

I always just assumed that once a baby is out of the womb, he/she has everything we have to its fullest. They don't pop out able to run, crawl, or even use their hands as we use them. But the basic senses I figured just came out at 100%.

Several months ago, I found out some developmental stages of a newborns vision. For example, while your newborns eyes are fully capable of seeing just fine after birth, his brain isn't ready to process all that visual information so things stay pretty fuzzy for awhile. At first, they can't see clearly more than 8 -15 inches away, just far enough to make out the person holding them. He/she can detect light, shapes, and movement but anything beyond that is blurry.

Even though your baby can see color from birth he has difficulty distinguishing similar tones such as red and orange. This is one reason babies will prefer black-and-white or high contrast patterns.

I wanted to make some sort of easy black and white mobile for the Kid to gaze at for these first several months. I found some beautiful small Sycamore branches in the backyard to use for my pieces to come down from. We had leftover leather straps from when we made homemade sandals last spring. Then I bought some wire, construction paper, and glue to get this project started.

I decided to go with simple circles so I went around the house tracing anything round I could find. I think it turned out pretty good for never doing one before. It will be fun to change out after summer is over with something more colorful and may be even sewn. It was a windy day so it was hard to get pics, but we took some anyways. Hope you enjoy the mobile and 40 week pic!