Things you find much easier to accomplish as an adult than as a child

I'm not talking about obvious things, like reaching high shelves, or legal things, like drive a car, but things that wouldn't strike you as being at all age-relevant, really.

For instance, finding the end of the roll on a roll of sellotape. This used to flummox me something rotten as a kid, but these days i find it straight away every time. When did I gain this skill? How? Why could I not do it when I was 10?

Fine motor skills develop relatively late plus experience.

i would like yr sellotape skill :(

I was unable to blow up a balloon as a child.

Still can't do the long thin ones without giving myself a brain haemorrhage tbh.

Maths.

I couldn't do balloons either.

i would like yr sellotape skill :(

― just sayin, Thursday, 10 February 2011 12:43 (1 hour ago)

There was a family tradition of using a small button underneath the end of the roll to make it easier to find. But somehow I have the 1337 'tape skills and don't need it.

on the other hand, fuck trying to blow up a balloon with lung power. I use a pump. On the balloons.

Still can't do the long thin ones without giving myself a brain haemorrhage tbh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/images/2007/05/02/michael_scott_396x222.jpg

Estimating distance.

Being bored.

i can only snap my fingers on one hand.

I couldn't snap my fingers as a child, but can do so easily as an adult.

its funny to watch my son get all confused when he's looking for a toy and i say its over there or behind you. doesn't quite grasp the concept of behind you yet.

Estimating distance.

navigation in general, really, whether it be instinctual, logical or map-related

I could get lost in my own bedroom as a kid.

xxp Try taking him to see a panto, he'll get the hang of it soon enough.

As a child I could never eat ice cream without getting a headache. Now I get a toothache instead.

Fixing things

Biking distance

Finding interesting culture to consume

(note: my immediate reaction to this thread title was "acquiring Legos", because I'm me.)

Nothing is easier.

JEZZBALL!! This game was so impossibly hard as a kid (could only pass the first few levels) though when a friend and I went through a "Jezzball revival" we would be constantly be one-upping each other with 20-minute games. We even wrote a song about it called "Jezzin'" (it was more than a little bit like "Strokin'") "Left to right you make a wall/front to back you make a wall/if you wanna make the Hall/you gotta ball until you fall!", and we somehow avoided all puns like "jezz on your face". I think our obsession bordered on psychotic back then; I'm okay now (the only thing I am really good at is Dr. Mario)

Oh i guess solitaire is easier.

Opening milk cartons.

Winking. (this is not a typo). I couldn't wink at all as a child, could only wink with my left eye as I got older, now able to wink with either eye.

I've never conquered whistling, which i think would qualify, if I could whistle now, as an adult.

I still have problems with baloons tbh.

I have problems with words that have two l's in them.

i still can only wink with my left eye.

ha

xp

Cooking - though I'm still limited.

Putting on a record - though I might even struggle with that for a moment now.

Not being scared of children - though it still depends on whether they're scary and violent.

whistle

I type way better. as a kid I struggled with Mavis Beacon, got very competent in high school, now as an adult type 90-100 wpm with few mistakes.

makes work get done much faster!

i used to hate ice skating because nothing on earth made me feel quite so physically graceless and unbeautiful, and none of the people gliding across the ice ever had any sympathy for me, and even people i went ice skating with who had never been ice skating and said that they were likely going to be unable to ice skate always turned out to be ice skating prodigies and sailed off into the distance with the pirouetting miniskirted girls, and then one day i rented skates one size smaller and oh look it turns out i can ice skate. i guess that's not really an age thing. it was pretty facepalm though.

as a small child, i used to be thoroughly unable to get past the log-jumping part in level one of super mario bros. 2.

interacting with cats (in a nice way) without getting scratched or bitten