Shari, I love your 9-year-old's response!
For better or for worse, my daughter is extraordinarily tall (she turns 4 in February and is the height of an average 6-year-old), so when she does or says unusual things in public people just assume she's older.
But when she was a baby and toddler and the size difference wasn't as noticeable we got a lot more comments from strangers, usually about her unusually advanced vocabulary or her general alertness and intense perceptiveness. I once, for example, was stopped for a drawbridge when the woman in the car next to me inched her car forward and then motioned excitedly for me to roll down my window. When I did, she gushed for several minutes about how alert and sharp and "with it" my baby was (My daughter was then maybe three or four months old). They'd been looking at each other through the windows, and the woman seemed so moved it was as though she'd had a spiritual or supernatural experience. It was really sweet but also felt very strange! At that point, of course, although I knew I had an unusual baby (because I kept getting these kinds of comments from strangers) I didn't realize she was gifted. Now when I meet babies who are extremely alert or intense, I warn their parents.
