an inquiry into the celebration of firsts

We get out the camera, the new blue one with the Lyca lens that my folks gave us cause they weren’t getting enough, or the right kind, of pics of their granddaughter. I stand around, positioning her face in the viewfinder, as our babysitter (whose idea it was to begin with) begins to feed her some soupy rice cereal. Snap and click. Snap and click. Here she is chewing on the spoon. Blowing out when the spoon touches her mouth, the pasty substance smeared all over her face. We will say this was her first meal. Her first meal, her first bike ride, her first xmas. . . and why do e celebrate these firsts? The man who cut my hair tells me that in Korea they celebrate the hundredth day of a baby’s life. The first, after all, is usually awkward, confusing, ill-conceived or at best ungraceful . . . Why not celebrate the second the fourth, the seventh? Is it just the American love of the Superlative?