Bear will be three in a couple of weeks now. He has been speaking in full sentences since he was a year old. He is HUGE compared to the other kids his age we know and yet I still call him a baby. Not a toddler, not a preschooler, but a baby.
People keep asking me why I call him a baby and I explain I did the same thing with Wolf. Until my kids tell me that they aren't babies anymore and that I shouldn't call them that they remain babies. When Wolf told me he wasn't a baby I stopped using that term for him.
The reasoning behind this is that our society pushes kids to grow up faster than is really healthy for them, in my opinion. Every aspect of many children's lives is scheduled. Even playing with other kids is written into the day planner as a "playdate." The problem becomes magnified when your kids are functioning several grades above their age. Kids get to be babies for such a small portion of their lives that I simply refuse to take that away from them before they let it go on their own. I know it probably isn't a conscious decision for them, but it is still their decision made on their own.
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