Next month, my tiny baby will turn three years old. She is no longer a jumble of miniature fingernails and nappies. Where her head was once only covered in a soft down, rubbed bald where she slept, she now has loose curls and a fringe.

Those bendy little limbs are now long and strong. Any hint of soft pudge has disappeared, leaving a gangle of arms and legs that almost fill the bath when she lies down.

My baby is no longer a baby.

This week I had one of those moments. You know the one: it hits you like a jolt and you see your child as they are for the first time.

In a second, the lingering fuzzy haze of the baby you once cradled in your arms is wiped out – Quantum Leap style – so that you have to blink to recognise the growing child who sits before you.

In that second, my mewling, red-faced newborn turned from this:

To this:

On the “phone” during a dinner date with her mum.

And, in that moment, I glimpsed the teen that she will one day become.

Scary really.