Every time the nursing assistant at the clinic updates our son’s height, I feel like stepping out to trash-talk the other parents in the waiting room. Something like, "It must be seafood night, because all of you brought shrimps! Woo-hoo, 90th percentile, baby!"

I’m not proud of this attitude. I promised to avoid becoming one of those ultra-competitive parents to Sean.

You know the ones. They browbeat Junior if he’s not playing the cello internationally by age 3. Or they file a lawsuit, arguing that his path to the Ivy League will be forever blocked if he isn’t allowed into the prestigious preschool.

Luckily this parenting thing is a long-term gig, so there’s time to change. Scrooge did it.

The first step is to give up the baby books. Stupid baby books, they’re the root cause of this competition. Seth Rogen’s character was right in "Knocked Up" when he jokingly asked his pregnant girlfriend how ancient peoples raised countless generations of kids without those "What To Expect" volumes.

They lay out what skills kids should master by certain ages. My guy-hood will likely be put on probation for reading them at all, but, with zero prior exposure to toddlers, I use the books as a briefing for each month’s mission.

Before them, of course, parents could weigh their little ones’ progress against kids of neighbors, friends or relatives. Except the sample size was small, so even if Junior was skinnier or less chatty than the rest, you could write it off because the others were probably high-achievers.

In the parental handbook era, you know exactly what children Junior’s age should be doing. How? Forty-seven pediatricians who study the topic 24/7 tell you at the beginning of each chapter.

It’s always worded delicately so parents don’t get stressed. The blurb will say, "Really, it’s probably perfectly normal for your son or daughter to sleep in a crib as a sophomore in high school. But you should check with your doctor in the teensy, weensy chance that he or she is a complete freakazoid."

Even if those are lies, they’re comforting ones. If Sean lags behind the curve in something, like his vocabulary, well, it isn’t our fault. The book says each kid develops differently.

It’s different if Sean is ahead of the curve — he was an early walker, for example. Then it’s because he’s brilliant. And that’s obviously due to our first-class genes.

This, I have come to realize, is called rationalizing. See? I’m cured.

You can read all about the transformation in my upcoming memoir, "What To Expect When Your Kid Is Shorter Than Mine."

"I don’t let her watch ‘Drake and Josh,’" my girlfriend said of her 9-year-old daughter. "They make out on that show."

The rest of us parents gathered on my back deck for a Memorial Day barbecue began roaring with laughter.

"Kids these days just grow up too fast," she said in response.

Amen.

Although I teased my friend about not letting her daughter watch the Disney channel show my 5 and 7 year old boys enjoy, I do get it. And I’ve been noticing more and more just how fast my kids are growing and just how old they want to pretend to be.

My oldest wants his own laptop computer and cell phone. And not just any cell phone, but a Blackberry Storm touch screen, just like his Uncle Carmelo’s.

My middle child is probably the most aggressive when it comes to wanting to be older than his years. He’s 5 going on 16.

The other day while I was doing some work in the kitchen and his older brother was doing homework, my 5-year-old called a kindergarten friend on the phone.

"Mom, I’m going outside to talk to Cade," he said, walking out the back door.

"OK," I said, assuming he just wanted a little privacy and was headed to the deck.

About 10 minutes later I went to get him to tell him dinner was ready, but there was no boy on the back deck. Or on the swings, or in the side yard.

My son was not in the backyard.

I called his name, then became frantic. I picked up another house phone and hit the button. "Roman?" I said.

"Yeah," he answered.

"Where are you? Why are you not in the backyard?"

My son had taken it upon himself to get his bike out of the garage, put the telephone on speaker phone, put the phone in his pocket, and ride around by himself out in front of the house while talking to his friend. None of this is allowed.

"Get off the phone and in the house, now!" I said.

After dinner, Roman was back on the phone with his friend. I overheard them discussing which girls they liked and who they wanted to kiss.

Gimme a break!

I told my son and his friend that they were too little to talk about that stuff. Then I had them hang up so my son could take a bath and brush his teeth before bed.

See, 5 going on 16.

And it’s not just my boys who want to be all grown up. Even my 2-year-old wants to be a bigger girl than she is. She wants to be done with the high chair and sit at the table like her brothers, even if it means kneeling in a chair.

She wants to climb the wooden ladder to the top of the backyard swing set and go down the slide herself, despite hitting the grass at full speed and landing with a thud on her bumper every time.

"Outside, outside!" she yells when her brothers go out to play during her nap time. "No nap!"

The other day she tried to refuse holding my hand while walking through a parking lot.

And soon, another school year will come to an end. My boys will head to first and second grade. My baby will be one year closer to preschool.

They want to be all grown up. They see big people as the folks with all the control, who get to do whatever they want. I remember that feeling.

What they don’t realize is that most adults would give anything to go back to being a carefree kid again. No mortgage. No dinners to cook. No grass to cut. No job to get up for.

No wrinkle cream to apply each morning before makeup.

I laughed at my friend, but I get her. I don’t want my kids to grow up too fast. Despite the eye cream, I’m not sure I’m done being a kid yet.

My children are very good at surprising me with what they are able to do, especially when left to their own devices.

Most parents remember their baby’s first time rolling over, first steps, first real sentence. Those are definitely some of the best awe-inspiring moments. It’s when we realize that our children are growing, learning, becoming stronger and older.

But who knew the awe would continue?

I’ve also learned that while I might be amazed by what my kids are able to do, it doesn’t always mean I’m happy with what they’ve done. More times than not, I discover their latest feat and think, "Whose children do this sort of thing?"

Mine apparently.

During the recent spring break, I woke up to find my 5 and 7-year-old boys playing in their basement playroom quietly. I was happy. The baby and my husband were still sleeping, the boys were occupied and I could head to the shower uninterrupted.

About 30 minutes later my sons walked upstairs carrying the phone book and phone. The youngest proudly turned to a page in the phone book and said, "I called and tried to order a pizza from here, but the lady said they don’t make them until 10:30."

HUH??!!

Apparently what I thought was quiet play was the two of them making sneaky phone calls to nearly every pizzeria in Racine trying to get someone to deliver a cheese pizza at 7 a.m. They even had it planned to use the $20 their little sister had gotten in her Easter candy from her Nana to pay for it!

I was mad, but in a disturbed kind of way, I was also kind of proud.

Who knew they were smart enough to use the phone book properly?

There was the time when my oldest was 2. I had put him up to bed for a nap. About 30 minutes later I heard him playing. I walked up the stairs and found him COMPLETELY covered in Desitin. I mean, head to toe white, creamy, almost impossible to wash off without soap, water and a washcloth, covered.

Who knew he was resourceful enough to grab a little chair, climb up and open the cabinet in his room where I kept the diapers, wipes and butt cream?

On a relaxing weekend a few years ago, I was sitting on the couch reading a book while the boys were quietly coloring at the nearby kitchen table. I’d peer up at them every now and then to make sure they were still there, but they seemed quite content. And truthfully, I was all too happy to become engrossed in my book.

After about 45 minutes had passed, I got up. That’s when I saw exactly what they had been coloring: themselves.

"Don’t I look like the Green Goblin?" my younger son asked.

Both his arms, from elbow to fingertips had been colored with a bright green marker.

"And I’m Spider-Man," the oldest said, lifting his shirt to reveal the spiderweb he had drawn in black marker on his chest. He had only one red and blue arm finished.

Who knew they were that creative?

Then there was the Saturday about a year ago when I walked into my bathroom and found my 4-year-old standing at the sink counter with a bright red bottle of nail polish open. In one hand was the brush. The other hand was dripping with red polish.

"I just wanted to try your poe nolish," he said.

Who knew ... OK, sometimes it’s just plain naughty behavior. There’s really no upside to red nail polish on a little boy and all over a bathroom counter.

Except that it becomes a funny story after the frustration and anger of the moment is over, the mess has been cleaned up, and no one has had to be rushed to the emergency room.

And every once in a while, my kids will surprise me in a way that makes me feel truly proud:

Like when I catch my boys snuggling together on the couch, or when the woman in charge of their Wednesday night church club tells me how polite and well-behaved they are, or when I discovered that my daughter is the first of my children to have inherited my neat gene.

"I spilled," she told me one morning as she sat in her highchair drinking some water. "Mommy, towel please?" she asked.

I handed her a kitchen towel. She soaked up the few drops of water that had fallen in her lap and handed the towel back to me. "Dant do Mommy."