If I hadn’t become a mom, I wouldn’t have taken the trip to Disneyland in a rented motor home that rattled and clapped all the way from Seattle to Southern California. But our son had never been to Disneyland and so the trip became a necessity. (The Disney character insisted on having his picture taken with me. I’m smiling but I’m thinking how to escape the overly friendly Disney character.) 

I would have never known:

1. The words to the song “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” Or that Slash is a real person who plays a guitar.
2. That you will live in your car for sixteen years, driving your child all over the place to soccer practice, music lessons, after school events, children’s birthday parties, and drive-thru McDonald’s.
3. That stepping on a Lego block in your bare feet makes you scream from the sheer pain while your neighbors slam their windows shut seconds before hollering, “Can’t we get any peace at all!”
4. That asparagus hidden in the houseplants (near the dinner table) will fossilize.
5. That you have poor anger management skills exhibited toward the neighbor lady when she complains your kid did something she didn’t like to her sweet angel child.
6. That you should never, ever, put trick candles (the kind you can’t blow out) on a birthday cake. Moms learn quickly their child does not think it’s a funny, silly joke. Children want success, especially on their birthday, and that includes blowing out birthday candles that stay blown not. The candles that relight themselves do not amuse your child. Oh! I know that now. However, kids will find it extremely amusing to get a whoopee cushion for their birthday. You will go to sleep listening to hideous. gaseous, flatulent sounds over and over accompanied by much chortling (which I think means laughing hysterically).
7. That you’re quite good at playing “Clue” and have figured out Miss Scarlet committed the murder. But you keep it to yourself and display a dramatic act of shock and surprise when your child beams and announces Miss Scarlet as the murderess.
8. That the best thing in the world is the day you, along with four other mothers, volunteer to chaperon the school field trip and as soon as your son sees you at school he calls out, “I’m in my mom’s group!”
9. That the insides of a golf ball contain a zillion little springy rubber bands that spring all over the house. You just had to give in, (didn’t you?), when your son asked you to cut the ball in half to see what’s inside. You pick tiny rubber band pieces out of the carpet for months.
10. When in the car with your children, you’re happy to sing “You are my sunshine” over and over (and over) because your kids are having so much fun belting out the tune at the top of their lungs. Then for variety you drop the word “sun” in sunshine and fill in your pet’s name and you’re singing over and over, “You are my Pumpkinshine.”
11. That the most painful event in your life is seeing your child’s heart broken.
12. That you will save the paper fan your son won for you at the school carnival for a hundred years.

Real Kids Give Real Answers to Questions About Their Mothers