I guess it really is very individual. I wasn't paying any attention to milestones, and "gifted" wasn't remotely on my radar, so maybe I just didn't see it. I certainly can't remember much, and since I'd never had a kid before, I had no idea what was normal. I do remember her being just several weeks old and staring at herself in a little mirror in her Moses basket. When she was about 18 months, I made a partial list of words she used, and it was around 200, including colors and numbers. But other than that, nothing ever hit me over the head. She was intensely interested in books and being read to, and began listening to full length novels by 3, but I thought that was because I read to her a lot. She didn't learn to read until she was 7, although she did so with limited instruction. (We unschool.)