I thought I'd address this one.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
Babies are born with many of their bones at the stage of calcified cartilage. Knee caps included. As they grow up ossification occurs and cartilage is replaced by bone. For the long bones, the tubular shaft ossifies first and then within the cartilage ends, bone is produced from the centre out. The cartilage at the ends of the shaft is responsible for lengthening the bones. By the end of our teens or so, our bones have completely ossified.
I learned this in an anatomy class that I took as my science requirement for my degree (still working on it). Our text book was a colouring book, what fun.
Heather In sunny Abbotsford, BC Near Vancouver
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