The Birthday Yearbook: the easy way of recording your baby's milestones

The one thing I was certain I was going to do, and do beautifully, when I had a baby, was the baby book. My mother conscientiously wrote down my and my brother's first 100 words, pasted photos into our own albums, and kept a lock of hair from our first trims. And I'm arty, dammit. Surely I was going to create a superb heirloom while my baby slumbered peacefully.

So, when my turn at parenthood came, I bought a lovely book, filled in the first few pages, and then, somehow, got too busy or too bogged down to fill the rest of it in. What can I say? I'm going to bequeath her my blog instead.

So I completely get the marketing pitch of the Two Little Boys Birthday yearbook. It's one book that you fill in once a year, for 18 years. Twenty minutes, once a year - that doesn't sound so bad.

The question is of course, whether you can keep focus for 18 years, let alone remember where the thing is every year. I mean, face it, we could be looking at 18 years of guilt instead of a sharp burst at the beginning of your child's life. But at least the book's low-key design is almost certain to last the course, even if you don't.