Book ‘Em: Leah’s Picture Book

Last week I finally was able to do something for Leah that I had been wanting to do for a long time. I didn’t feel too badly for my procrastination, though, since she is only now hitting an age when she will appreciate it.

Months ago, I found a cheap photo album at the Dollar Tree and had been working on filling it ever since. I collected an assortment of recent pictures of her family – aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins – and made her a picture book.

My main motivation for this project came when I realized that she wouldn’t recognize family members she doesn’t see very often when they were able to come visit (or vice versa). It might be expecting a lot from her at this point, but I thought that maybe seeing their faces more often might help with the “stranger danger” reaction when they’re in front of her in person. (It couldn’t hurt, anyway.)

I’m hoping it has the added benefit of helping her learn to say names, now that she’s trying to talk more and more and is obviously developing a fondness for people she knows.

We flip through the pages together and point out the people she sees, saying their names as we go. Some she recognizes, some she doesn’t. Some she even kisses and hugs.

She loves to look at the pictures, though, and I think is thrilled that those pictures – unlike so many of the others around the house – are hers to play with.