Are we growing them up too fast?

I had a really weird day. An air conditioner fell out of the ceiling and landed on some kids in the lunchroom of my district's elementary school, so the emergency response plan went into effect and the high school was dismissed early under a deluge of confusing rumors. I picked up Laurel from daycare and headed for the library. We watched a bunch of buses go through the intersection from the big windows out front, and I've found that she's starting to be cooperative when I ask her to wait or come with me so that I can do something for myself. Today she happily sat with her books and DVDs while I browsed a bit, and I thought to myself, do we expect too much out of them? The neighbor's mother, who is visiting from Canada, called over across the fence yesterday to us, and she was surprised to learn that Laurel is only 2 1/2. She does seem grown up for her age. I wonder if it's the bangs? Or maybe we treat her too much like an adult. I served her ice cream in a glass dish, and she broke it accidentally, by clinking her spoon on it, but didn't know that it was sharp and dangerous. Luckily M noticed right away, but it's such a fine line between babying a baby, and holding a child to basic expectations before they're ready.