There are a lot of great things about having kids; the hugs and kisses, the unconditional love, the way they look when they are sleeping, etc. But I got to thinking the other day about some other things that come along with having kids. Below is my list of four fringe benefits that comes with having kids.
1. The food-Having kids means I have pizza rolls in my house and yes, the occasional Ding Dong or Twinkie. Yum! It even means that I often bake for no real reason. Before kids I only baked if I needed to. Now I often find homemade cookies or muffins in the house, just because the kids enjoy them.
2. Catching fireflies and tadpoles-I hadn’t done either since I was a child and chances are, if my husband and I were alone in our front yard catching fireflies, we might get some strange looks, but add kids to the mix and no one bats an eye. And admit it, it’s just fun to try and grab those slippery tadpoles out of the creek or pond!
3. Dancing in the car-I love to sing and dance along with the car radio. Admittedly, I am not good at either and if alone, often feel self conscious but when I’ve got the kids in the car we all sing along and no one worries about how we look or sound.
4. Got me over my fear of public restrooms-Don’t know if it was really a fear or more of an aversion, but for the first 30 years of my life, I rarely, if ever, used a public restroom. Oh how that changed once we potty trained our children. It’s as if we are on the great restroom tour. It doesn’t matter if we went 10 minutes ago at home, by gosh, if there is a restroom at McDonald’s, Quik Trip, Hy-Vee, the park-we will go! And I don’t dare call them on it because then I’ll just be dealing with a whole other issue.
What’s on your list? I’d love to hear some of the perks you have discovered since having kids.