Your baby coos for the first time and you shout it from the rooftops.
It sleeps, eats, winks, moves its bowels or waves at you and you just have to tell someone or you’ll burst.
This carries through to all of your first child’s actual milestones. The rolling, the crawling and the walking. One week old, 10 weeks, six months and then, of course, one year.
My youngest, Bonnie, turned one last week, and her party at the weekend was noticeably different to my eldest daughter Eden’s 12-month milestone a few years ago.
A relaxed affair, there was no pressure of pulling off an extravagant gala event — we’d been there, done it all before, but that didn’t make her first birthday any less special.
The fact we’d only planned the party itself a fortnight in advance didn’t detract from the milestone — there were still plenty pink balloons and cake to go around.
But it gave us permission to ‘stress less’, so to speak.
Even Bonnie’s first tottering steps recently didn’t draw the song and dance that Eden’s did.
Babies eventually walk — it’s a pretty done thing, all things considered.
It was only when my grandmother starting hooting and hollering after seeing Bonnie’s ‘first steps’ at the weekend that I realised I hadn’t informed my wider family of her new skills.
Is broadcasting it in the newspaper enough penance?
Tyler Maher is the editor of the News.
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