Back before having kids, many of us imagined the best parts of being a mom were snuggles (that's 100% accurate) and getting to buy adorable onesies. Sure, you were probably nervous and not looking forward to blowout diapers. That's totally normal! You expect the good with the bad, right? What you didn't anticipate, were all the awesome surprise benefits that came with being a mom. Here are just a few of our favorites!

Top Ten Surprise Benefits To Being A Mom

1. So much birthday cake is in your life! Once you have a baby, it seems like every week they receive a birthday party invite. Enjoy every minute of it, mama! Go to the parties. Connect with other parents. Let friends hold the baby while you pee and wolf down a colorful little paper plate full of watermelon and goldfish. When you’re offered a cupcake, eat the cupcake. Embrace the cupcake. It is awesome! 
2. Your love for Disney is rekindled. It’s probably been a good decade since you’ve sat through a screening of The Lion King. It’s seriously just as good as you remember it. Disney holds up, my friends. This is your chance to rewatch the classics and dive right into the new releases.  
3. You never realized how cool dinosaurs actually were. Or trains, worms, rare birds, glitter… When your kids become interested in something they are INTERESTED. You’ll find yourself drawn into a million conversations surrounding the same topic. You’ll come home with library books about it, you’ll have YouTube videos saved in your phone about it. After awhile, you’ll basically be able to deliver a dissertation about dinosaurs/trains/ glitter/ whatever. If you’re being totally honest with yourself… You kinda start to understand the obsession. You may start reading articles about trains as they pop up in your newsfeed, or take pictures of cool White-breasted Nuthatches you come across. It's totally normal.  
4. You find yourself actually understanding and loving sports. This goes along with #3. If you have a kiddo that slays at field hockey, baseball, etc., it doesn’t matter if you’ve never cared about sports in the past. You’ll totally find yourself so wrapped up in your child's games you won’t know what hit you. Eventually, you may find yourself watching professional sportsball on TV, with your kid. Not only that, YOU’LL UNDERSTAND WHAT’S HAPPENING AND CARE. I know! Crazy, right? 
5. You're thinking about your future and doing things about it. Before kids, “The Future” felt like such a far off, fuzzy place. Now, you’ve got goals and a roadmap to achieve them. You’re planning college, your retirement, and trips to Disneyland. It’s a lot to think about, but you're totally on top of it! 
6. You are so productive in the morning!  You used to wake up with just enough time to get ready for work and maybe hit the gym. Now? You do more before 8:00am than some people do in a day.  
7. Nothing grosses you out anymore. Vomit, boogers, pee, drool. No biggie. Your kid hands you a slug. You're more upset about having to wipe the goo off her hands again. Nothing fazes you, man. You are a rock. 
8. Your heart is ten times bigger. You went from being the girl who never cried during sad movies, to a hot sobbing mess over cereal commercials. You feel other people’s pain and happiness with a whole new intensity, and your own even more so. It’s as though every time you have a baby, your heart grows a little bigger. 
9. They are the ultimate excuse to get out of that awkward social engagement you’re dreading. “Ohhhh, yeah sorry. We can’t make it. The baby goes to bed around that time and he would be a total wreck. Got to keep him on the schedule! Sorry!” 
10. You get to do so many FUN things, without feeling silly - Do you want to hunt for painted rocks downtown and then go get ice cream? How about watch Cars 3, in the theater? Or spend Saturday morning binge watching Phineas and Ferb, on Netflix? Of course you want to do those things! Would they feel a little silly to do alone as an adult? Yeah, kind of. Thank goodness you have kids!

Written by Brenda Sapanghila

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