When you are a parent, it’s often very difficult to tell if your kids are actually growing. In general, they are. You just don’t notice it. But when you think about it, if your eldest child is now 5 years old, and they haven’t actually grown (which is the case) since they were born, then why do you keep needing to buy them new and bigger clothes?

The other way to tell if they are growing is to take them to an aunt. The job of your kids aunts and uncles is to grab any remaining fat on their cheeks as tightly as possible, jiggle it around and almost rip their head off and say something along the lines of “I remember you when you were this big” (while putting their hand at some point level with the child’s stomach. Or they say something like, “Oooh, haven’t you grown.”

Anyway, that’s all well and good for children. What are the signs when you become an adult.

Well, I can’t comment for women, but in my experience, the signs are:

  • Extra hair growing from your nose that never used to be there.
  • Extra hair growing from your ears that never used to be there.
  • An inexplicable increase in girth that means all your trousers are just a little bit too tight now.
  • Lengthening of your eyebrow hair. In my case, my eyebrows (although still looking quite trim generally) are now about 1 inch long! I’m sure this isn’t normal for normal people. I also have some white eyelashes as well, but I don’t think this is related. But my eyebrows are soon going to be long enough to create a rope for people to climb up the outside of the house if we ever have an emergency!