Everybody makes baby's first year milestones seem so monumental. In truth, I can't pinpoint when they happened. Total rip off.
Humor Parenting

My Baby’s First Year Milestones Were a Total Rip Off

Everybody makes baby's first year milestones seem so monumental. In truth, I can't pinpoint when they happened. Total rip off.

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They say a baby’s primary year of life is filled with many ‘firsts.’ We’ve often heard remarks such as, “Jimmy said his first word today!” or “Annie rolled over this morning for the first time!”

So naturally, I expected my daughter’s firsts to be quite definitive. I assumed that at a specific moment in time she would sit up, crawl, walk, etc. We’d all laugh, cry, clap, hug and record it on our phones. Then that would be it—she’d master the new skill and all our lives would improve from there on out.

Only that’s not how it happened. Instead all of her milestones were gradual—occurring in stages over a period of at least three weeks. And I’ll be damned if I can pinpoint any exact hour, day, or location where the amazingness occurred.

So here’s what I have to say to you people gushing all those hackneyed phrases about your baby’s ‘firsts’:

Two words: False. Advertising.

Two more words: Rip. Off.

One more word: Anticlimactic.

Here is True Hollywood Story behind four of my daughter’s so-called (or not so)”firsts” that left me scratching my head while filling out the keepsake book:

First ‘Sit Up’: My daughter was born in June and at some point in October (???) I was able to set her on the floor and she’d sit there for about five seconds before toppling sideways. As time went on she was able to sit for longer and longer stretches, but I’d always have to be directly behind her, waiting to catch her fall.

Eventually she started doing what I dubbed “the cover girl,” where she’d start off lying on her back and somehow end up on her side, leaning on the crook of her elbow with her top leg slightly bent. Then one day (but not one particular day) she’d graduated from her Christie Brinkley pose into a full-on sit up position.

First ‘Crawl’: When she was seven or eight or nine months, she began to do a sort of shimmy during tummy time, similar to that dance, “The Worm.” Sometime after that she was able to get on all fours. And two or three or four weeks later, she stuck an arm out to move forward. Then she crept. Then she crawled. Sort of. All I know is at some point I had to move the cat food bowls to the basement because I couldn’t keep her away from them.

First ‘Word’: One day (yes, one particular day in this case), my husband walked up the stairs into our living room where my daughter was sitting (on her own!) and upon seeing him, she shouted, “Dod-die!” We both froze and locked eyes for a mere second before simultaneously running to her and coaxing her to repeat what she’d just said. She stared at us blankly. She was only six-and-a-half months—maybe seven-and-a-half months, I honestly don’t know—but by all accounts, too young to speak.

We began questioning the whole thing: “Did she say it?” “She might have just been babbling.” “Has she ever said that before?” Months went by without her uttering any sort of decipherable speech. One time I swear she said “cookie,” but I’m not sure. Even now at 15 months, the things she says are questionable. She babbles with fantastic inflection, and often understands the words I say to her, but that’s about it.

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First ‘Step’: Not too long after becoming a master crawler, my daughter started pulling herself up to stand, using the coffee table as a base. The first time my husband noticed this, he got all excited. “Nah, it’s not the first time,” I said. “She’s done it before. Your mother said she did it last week at her house. I’m not really sure when it started.” This progressed to cruising around the coffee table and for several weeks, that was it. After that it was standing up for a few seconds before crashing to the floor. Maybe once or twice she moved a leg forward, and someone would yell, “She took a step!” And I’d be like, “She did?”

Pretty soon, it would be two little steps, then three, then four, then five, etc., but this was going on constantly, all day long, in fact. Somewhere in the midst of her persistent attempts to walk, her “first step” got lost in the shuffle.

In any event, she’s now a pro, and we’re all suffering.

I’ve come to realize that a baby’s first year milestones are like the changing of the seasons. It’s not like it’s just spring one day. It’s continual. First you see buds on the trees, then a crocus, a robin, etc. Before you know it, you’re buying Claritin for seasonal allergies.

Like most good things in life, it’s a process, and from it we garner patience, knowledge, and appreciation.

But it’s still a total rip off.

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