oh yeah, ultramarina - that just nails it, doesn't it? that weird, covering up thing we have to do.

brings to mind an open house we went to in the spring...

DD5, surveying the horde of screaming 6/7 y/olds in the back of the gym, slings a world-weary arm over the back of her chair and deadpans, "WHERE are their PARENTS?"

(i need to stop now, i could read these all day!)

Oh my-- yes.

When your 4yo confesses to you that she's not sure how parents "stand so much noise and rambunctiosness." (Meaning, in NT agemates.)

When you try desperately to evade other parents in the "so what is your child doing" watercooler chit-chat. Or you tell them half truths.

"{Child} is really enjoying reading" (yeah, reading A Brief History of Time, at 8yo)

"Oh, she's still really into dolls." (Yes, DD7 regularly reenacts 18th and 19th century causes of child mortality with them... in order to make play with her American Girls a bit more... er... authentic. I think that Kit is now partially disabled, since she has post-polio syndrome. DD really wanted an iron lung for her dolls last week.)

The normal toddler "why" phase lasted a day before expanding into who, what, where, what and my favourite how. These were pursued with such zeal that you felt like you were being interrogated by a professional and often resulted in "I'll have to look that up" even when they were in a field that you have a 4 year degree in.

Seriously, the exhausting intense interrogations were my first hint.

When the neighbors mention that they can't spell things to keep their kids from knowing what they're talking about, because DS-then-3 helpfully translates for them. ("Oh, you're going to the c-a-r-n-i-v-a-l, I love the carnival!")

your 5 year old who has been wanting to go to kindergarten for 3 years now hates school because the teacher reads all of the directions rather than letting the kids read them for themselves.

or when you're at a local start party and your then 6 year old knows more about the sky than the adults doing the presenting.

When you are at a party where an adult is telling everyone about a really hard 'Google interview question' - and your DD8 who happened to be walking by announces the answer while adults are still spinning the question around in their heads - LOL

When your 7 year old tells his grandpa his (meaning grandpa's) behavior is counterproductive and he should really work on that. And no one really batted an eyelash.

DeHe

Your 4yo has been coming up with various ideas to defeat gravity and fly up. Latest idea is an air box that is attached to her bum to push her up. She is desperate. She took out a piece of paper and, with help from me on spelling, wrote a letter to her science teacher. Here is how it went: For teacher's name. How to fly? How does a hot air balloon take off? She is planning to give her letter to her teacher tomorrow.

When your DS4 solves practical issues at DH's work before the adults do, and they use his ideas.

The spelling thing reminded me that we spelled words backwards so that our precocious kids didn't know what to think. It was soooo hard because the receiver had to figure it out. Hey i was thinking m-a-e-r-c e-c-i.....where do you want to get it? I am surprised they never did because dh is the champion saying the alphabet backwards which is what gave us the idea I think.