BFF Photo Shoot

From BFF Pictures

Kellen likes to take pictures. Now Leah has learned how to pose for the camera. This particular day Leah asked her daddy to take pictures of her and whale together. Whale is Leah's best friend. This at times can be interesting because Whale is not your typical stuffed animal...he's really large. One of Leah's favorite things to pass the time is to sit and stroke whale. 

From BFF Pictures

Another thing Leah loves is her thumb. Now some people cringe that Leah sucks her thumb...but I don't really care. I'm actually proud that she does. Leah has always been a self-soother. As parents we can't be control freaks about everything.  When Leah gets upset she doesn't look to someone to soothe her and tell her everything is going to be alright...she just pops her thumb in and grabs whale! 

This may sound harsh, but I'm not always going to be around when life throws her challenges and it's comforting to know that she'll already know what its like to take something on herself. Now that she is getting older and she's putting two and two together, I've seen her step back from situations and handle them independently (with out her thumb) and I know that's because she's confident that she doesn't always needs someone else.  I think as parents WE are the one's who are afraid, afraid to let go of the control...we don't want our kids not to need us. But I say it's okay. So I let Leah suck on her thumb.

Besides, as time goes on she uses it less and less and the pediatrician explained to me that really it does not permanently hurt their teeth until they are 5 or 6 and usually it's too embarrassing at this age for them to continue doing!

From BFF Pictures