You Know Your Kid's Not a Baby Anymore When...

They can pour their own juice.

ha ha - this happened to me as well - and yes I will only admit it here - she is stronger than me..

He can run his own bath water and doesn't pour the whole bottle of bubble bath in the tub.

They climb up into their car seat and click themselves in.

Later it's "the look" when you walk into a store together and she see's classmates/friends and is appalled at the idea of being seen with her mother (around 11).

...when quality time with dad means driving her to the mall and then she tells you to get lost for a few hours.

When the training wheels come off.

when they can (and will) reliably wipe their own bums


oh yeah

When you hear less of George and George's boy than Rhys and Rhys's dad.

When they no longer like your singing....

Awwww these almost bring a tear to my eye.

I am fortunate though - when I say I don't have any more babies - my little one (now 9) tells me she will always be my baby...

Aw, these are great!

I know what you mean about the tears, though, Linkat.

Next entry: when you realize that your feet are the same size. That just happened, seriously threw me for a loop.

I'm looking forward to getting to that point

I think my 2.5yr old is still a "baby" (at least to me for sure), but it still surprised me recently when she decided to let the dog out on her own and then call the dog and let it back in again (opening and closing the sliding glass door on her own). There's this little miniature person running across the room going, "Me do, Me do!" and then unlocking the slider and struggling to pull it open. Then this little voice yelling, "Koda!, Koda!" (short for Dakota, which is the dogs name) to get her back in again. Then she slides the door closed, locks it and says, "Ok". Then goes back to coloring.

When you need stuff from the high shelf and you grab a stool, and they laugh at you and get it with out reaching or breaking a sweat.

That's my dog's name! Just the Koda part. Funny - we searched high and low to come out for the right name for him.

We eventually stole if from brother bear (the little bear's name) as our dog when he was a puppy looked like a little black bear cub (yes I know brother bear wasn't a black bear - but it was close). And with the meaning of Koda being friend = we felt it fit him perfectly.

First I've heard of another dog named that - even in a shortened form.

At least I am still taller - by about a half inch - but still taller.

I guess technically her short name would be "Kota", but it always comes out sounding like "Koda", so we go with that.

... when she got her first part-time job
... when she didn't like the exclusiveness of her very tight group of friends and went her own way
...when her annual dance concerts went from cute to really quite impressive
... when I couldn't help her with her maths homework anymore
... when she told me she'd lost her virginity.
.... etc etc

When I was at the eye clinic recently (fine, fine), I was passing the waiting time for my eyes to dilate by reading Scientific American; there was an article by Alison Gopnik on how doctors (et al) have misunderstood children's ability to learn during the years they are not talking fluently (my word there) yet. Fascinating, but I only got to the end of the second paragraph and fuzzball eyes when I was called. Didn't just lift the magazine later on because the doctor walked me out... (laughs, would I do that? No, I might ask for a photocopy of an article).

Anyway, I want to look up that article. I'd figured as much from reading recently, but want to read Gopnik's descriptions further.

Aha, this is it - it's from July 2010. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-babies-think

Anyway, your daughter's smarts reminded me about that article.
Edit, I'm now thinking Sozobe may have spoken about this before and that I forgot.

Yes, I love Alison Gopnik! I recommend "The Scientist in the Crib" to all new parents.

He's proud to be able to tie his own shoes without daddies help!