Good point. There are repetitive signals that her expectation is that he hasn’t materially changed.

Beyond the ‘you grew up’ startlement at his physical growth and development, she expects his temperament, preferences ambitions and values are exactly the ones she saw in him at six years old.

She’s not just missed the past year as a cadet in Starfleet, they both have missed his entire adolescent experience of youth separating themselves from their parents.

Interestingly, the challenge of needing to catch up with who someone has changed into is foreshadowed by Caleb and the others’ difficulties in understanding who SAM is now - and her own struggles to reconcile who she was with who she is.