From their first year babies will start to have more control – hold their head, roll over, sit up unaided, hold a rattle, put everything into their mouths and start to crawl. During their second year development and growth continues and most start to walk. They learn to control their movements and grab objects and food and start to play with toys. They will start to climb and learn to judge distances. Towards their third year, children will have lots more control as their muscles develop and their confidence grows. Feeding themselves, using a cup and showing an interest in dressing themselves, also able to grip pencils and turn pages in a book. | Babies from birth cry to communicate and react this way to sounds. They then begin to turn their heads in the direction of sounds and use their eyes to follow others. As babies develop they enjoy attention and learn to make noises other than crying and will start to laugh. By the age of one, most understand simple words like no and yes and their own name. They will start to follow simple instructions.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.