Thirteen years ago, I had my first child. He arrived into this world all tiny and delicious after a fairly unpleasant delivery. Our eyes met and I fell in love. He’s always been my baby boy. Until recently.

I am now the proud mother of a “Man-Boy”.

The Man-Boy is an interesting species – they have the appearance and personality of grown men one minute, and then revert back to a more familiar childlike state the next. No one can predict which personality the Man-Boy will show at any given time. If you have one living among you, you know the unpredictability I speak of.

Telltale signs you have a “Man-Boy” of your own:

• He has just enough peach fuzz above his lip to participate in “Movember”. However, you only know he is participating because he tells you, the physical evidence being too weak.
• He won’t let you drop him off in front of his school, but he wants an extra cuddle when you tuck him into bed.
• When you ask him how school went, he grunts. Yet, he is eager for you to tell him stories about funny things he did when he was a baby.
• He can eat more than you. In a strange twist of events, he now finishes what is on your plate instead of it being the other way around. In fact, he eats you out of house and home and you just remortgaged to feed him.
• One minute he is engrossed in a Die Hard or James Bond movie and the next, he is cruising his old “Land Before Time” collection, having difficulty deciding which one to watch.
• If he spent as much time doing homework as he did playing Minecraft or planning for the Zombie Apocalypse, he’d be on his way to a Harvard scholarship.
• His feet are ridiculously big and it makes you super grumpy because men’s shoes are way more expensive than boys’ ones.
• The bedroom that was once beautifully decorated with blue paint and toy trains now smells like hockey bags and sweaty socks, no matter how often it gets cleaned.
• Having a “Man-Boy” can be a trying time for a mama. We still picture them as we first did that moment they landed in our arms. I held on for dear life then, and I’m going to keep holding on. This is one wild ride!