Your pediatrician may tell you when it’s time for hard foods, when to put the car seat away and celebrate textbook wins with you, but there are a lot of other milestones that your pediatrician might never point out.  These landmarks aren’t any less important and are actually moments in time that will forever seem frozen in your mind.  These are the tiny life wins that you’ll never forget.  These little achievements serve as the building blocks of memories that are less developmental and more sentimental.  Here are a few.

1.  First Sentence

The first word can be exciting and even the second and third.  When babies start to talk, teaching them new words to add to their vocabulary starts to feel like a super fun full-time job.  We start to spend most of our time trying to get out babies to understand the world around them.  Something that tends to go unnoticed is when our baby loves put words together to form their first real sentence. Whether it’s telling you they need something or asking a question, this little verbal act indicates that life is starting to make sense. They’re getting the associations! It is truly monumental. 

2.  A Stroll Without a Stroller

When you have a baby, you just come to accept that a stroller is part of life.  Even when your baby learns to walk, you still don’t get to escape that stroller life.  Let’s be real for a second.  At this point, your stroller has kind of become an everyday tool – you’ve got a cup holder, a basket for your bags, and a hook for your purse.  Things could be worse. Consider your life without your stroller.  That’s the first time you get to leave the house with your little one and leave the stroller at home!  Now, ALLLL of you can walk without being wheeled around in the stroller.  It’s a moment you can overlook if you’re not fully present.

3.  The First Booboo

This milestone isn’t the most fun, but you’ll miss these times when your toddler turns to a teen and doesn’t need you so much anymore.  First injuries will be the start of a long list of times when your little one will cry out for you to fix their pain with a kiss. 

4. The First “I Love You”

From the moment our children are born we shower them with love and affection and a million “I love you,” declarations a day.  Kisses and hugs make everything better and reciprocation isn’t necessarily expected.  Then, there’s that one day that it happens and everything changes.  Your baby is a walking, talking human now and they tell you they love you back in the most sincere, innocent way that only a child can.  You feel your heart melt in the most unexpected yet magical way when this happens. 

We live in a very fast paced, supersonic moving world and it is so easy to miss things if you’re not paying attention.  The moral of the story is make sure you’re being present during these years because if you’re not, you may miss those once in a lifetime moments that you’ll never get back.