Ha. Well, my oldest son was 11 when he came bursting into our room, with a horrified look on his face. He whispered, “I’m… I have… there are HAIRS… growing… under my arms and… down… there.”
At this point I reminded him how I had tried a million times to talk to him about these things and he would refuse to have the discussion because he ‘didn’t want to grow up’.
He then proceeded to grow a foot and a half that summer, his voice cracked all the time, especially when he got excited about something. He started getting tiny baby hair mustache. His face changed and became more ‘manly’ instead of the soft babyface. He had serious bouts of “male PMS” with stints about once a month of having serious issues controlling his temper and then feeling horribly guilty for losing it. We got him vitamins for Teen boys and that helped the emotional stuff at least.
He went from looking like a typical gangly 11 year old, to looking like an 18 year old guy over the course of three months. It was crazy.
My younger son was always curious about all things, so he wasn’t surprised about any of the changes and I didn’t hear reports on the symptoms from him. I don’t think puberty started for him until maybe 13. He grew to be taller than his brother, but at a much slower rate. He grew facial hair at an earlier age, his voice changed gradually with NO cracking at all.
They are 21 & 20 now, so I might have a few things off, its been a while.
