Always happy to poke a hole in a stereotype... I was the one who noticed, and I'd have to say the very first time I noticed she was different was in the delivery room. Every night before my DD6 was born I'd read aloud to her and my wife, and I'd always start it out by saying her name in the same tone, so she'd recognize me when she came out. Then came the moment where she was placed, swaddled and screaming, in my arms. I said her name in that same tone, she stopped crying immediately, and her eyes were perfectly focused on me and tracking my relative motion as I rocked her side to side. The books said she shouldn't be able to track moving objects for another few weeks, so that wasn't normal.
At two months old we couldn't get her to wear anything she hadn't picked out. We had to hold her up to the closet so she could rifle through and make a selection. That wasn't normal.
At six months old we figured we'd come up with some baby signs to make things easier, but by the time she got there she already had words for everything she needed, and more besides. Her first intelligible word was "Doodlebop." That wasn't normal.
Later on, my wife started teaching her first colors, then shapes, then letters and numbers, so she'd be ready for school when the time came. When DD was 3 and already beyond all that and working on letter sounds and writing, I kept asking my wife, "What are we going to do with her when she gets to kindergarten?" She just shrugged her shoulders and wondered why I thought there was anything unusual going on.
DW vehemently avoided the "gifted" label even when DD was being screened for it in kindergarten, but now that we've been dealing with the school system for over a year now and she's taken some time to do some reading on the topic, she's a lot more comfortable with it... especially since it explains issues we've had with emotional intensity and perfectionism.
