This is a genuine question, because I've got no idea. I still think of my little boy Sonny as a baby, but only because I always have done. He's big, loud, almost 14 months old and standing on his own two feet, so does that mean he's turned into a toddler?
With his baldy head and dopey grin, Sonny still looks like a big baby, but over the past two weeks he's started taking his first assisted steps and is surely only a few days short of unleashing the terrifying chaos of walking upon our house (the dog had better watch out).
I've been excited about this stage of being a dad pretty much since the day we found out Gemma was pregnant. Sonny can already stand up by himself, crawl almost as quick as I can run, climb the stairs, ransack the kitchen cupboards, chase the dog, plus countless other things that scare us half to death; but the thought of watching my little boy walking or running around the garden by himself feels like the biggest stage of his development yet. Surely that first momentous kick of a football is just a few weeks away now!!!!
I've looked up a few definitions of what a toddler is on Google today. Some people suggest it's when they turn one, another website suggested between 2-3 years old, a very common opinion is when they start walking unaided, and my favourite suggestion so far is that your kid only becomes a fully fledged toddler once they start stealing your car keys.
Ultimately I suppose it makes no real difference. Baby or toddler? It's just a word, and is probably more to do with what your child feels like to you. Sonny will always be our baby, but he feels like a proper little boy now and has grown up so much over the past two months. He's so much bigger, stronger, louder, tougher, braver, cheekier and more mischievous than he was even this time last week.
So ultimately I'm not really sure what Sonny is. Baby, toddler, lad, legend - it makes no real difference. He's just my favourite person in the whole world.
This article was originally published at www.theoutdoordad.co.uk