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I was a clueless mom my first time around (despite going to college to teach elementary special ed - go figure). My daughter was walking and talking at 9 months - negotiating, not just talking. It never occurred to me that she might be gifted until she was older. My middle child refused to walk (a speed crawler) until almost a year and half. I missed the boat with him as well until a Kinder teacher asked to have him screened. My youngest, I knew from the time he was a newborn that he was different. At only a few weeks old, he would move to the off-beat rhythm when we took him to the symphony. He was playing Star Wars shooting games (when his brother left them running) when he wasn't yet two - and could beat his older brother's scores. He tried hacking our passwords on the computer around the same age. He memorized entire audio books, including the sound effects, when he was three. But he talked, walked, potty trained really late, so I decided to just wait and see how it went. But I did know something was definitely not the norm.

So, my thoughts are that sometimes we innately know our young ones are way ahead of the developmental curve and begin searching for answers because we think maybe we're a little crazy. Sometimes maybe a mom really, really wants their child to be gifted, but I haven't seen that nearly as much as moms who suspected and wanted to confirm what they were seeing.

But having ridden far enough down this river of raising gifted kids to have plunged over a few waterfalls and jostled through a boatload of rapids, my advice to all of them is pretty much the same. Keep an eye out, log the milestones in case you need them for applications, but just enjoy these slower years before life ramps up and you're in the thick of it having to advocate and argue and push and interject and intrude and... Really. When they're tiny is the only time you can just savor their growth and not have to fight someone else to make sure your kiddo is getting what they need in a system not built for them.