First, this isn't a sponsored post. I wish it was haha! Anyway, Keds. If you've been following my blog for a while now, you'd know I love Skechers. It's really the most comfortable shoes and busy-mommy me needs comfort! But around 3 years ago, busy-mommy became I-want-to-be-stylish-again mommy and so I got Keds. (I still have Skechers for working out and for days I need to run around all day.)
Well, my husband bought me the plainest white sneaker of Keds. He wanted to get me something more special but I was thinking about how I can wear that plain white Keds with absolutely anything - jeans, slacks, dresses, even a satin-and-lace outfit that I didn't get a photo of! So its basic simplicity allows me to be stylish and comfortable so it's really the best Keds shoe anyone should own.
Anyway, I'm subscribed to their online shop. I wish I wasn't because every week I torture myself with looking at their shoes. I love ALL their shoes, especially when they had collabs with Taylor Swift and Kate Spade. So gorgeous! Okay. Maybe not all. Not a fan of their boots because I'm not a boots person. But everything else I wish was in my shoe closet.
This week, my inbox declared that Keds was on sale. And so I clicked on the email. And then I clicked and clicked and clicked!
So many fabulous shoes on sale! Sadly, most of my choices were already sold out on my size. I especially want these:
And this was the last click:
Hala! Should I buy all three? Or all nine haha? Parang dapat one only kasi I don't go out of the house naman. Three pairs are too much for quarantine huhu. Tell me which one to get! Thanks!
Possibly one of the best pieces of advice given to me when I was a new mommy more than a decade ago was, "Don't blink."
It was also one of the worst.
And I really really tried hard not to blink. Even when I had yayas, I couldn't let my guard down. I didn't want to miss anything. I didn't sleep for 8 years! So when despite all that, when the boys' first words and first steps were witnessed by their Papa or their yayas, instead of me celebrating the milestone, I anguished over the guilt of not being the one to see it first. Because I was their mother. I'm supposed to be the one to see it all happen. I'm the front and center. I'm the hands-on, must-be-there mama. To miss anything means I was a bad mom.
Well, fuck that. All that pressure was the one making me a bad mom!
So I blinked. In fact, I slept. I trusted my husband to be a parent, too. I trusted my kids to be on their own and to do things on their own. And I found that I could finally breathe, free from the pressure to be forever present, to never blink.
Listen, young mama. It's true. All this is fleeting. Tomorrow, your not-talking baby will suddenly say, "Dada." Tomorrow, your crawling baby will stand up on wobbly chubby legs and walk. Tomorrow, your child won't need you to spoon-feed him, or wash his butt, or dress him. He'll want to talk to his friends instead of you. He'll close his bedroom door. He'll forget to kiss you goodnight.
And that's okay. I love Facebook Memories because I get to be reminded of how adorable my kids were. What those pictures fail to show is how desperately exhausted I was from keeping my eyes wide open all the time. I know now it's not healthy to obsess about missing any of it. I had to look away from them and look at me, look at my husband, look at the rest of my life, and also take care of those aspects of myself. And when the other parts of me were flourishing, my kids looked at me, too, and saw more than just a mama. That's important, too.
People told me all the time back when I was going insane with the sleepless nights and the "don't blink!" guilt-inducing comments, "You will miss all this! Just you wait!" Well, almost 11 years later, I am happy to say I don't miss it at all. I'm relieved. I'm glad it's over. I'm happy I'm no longer stressed out with the constant vigilance. I'm healthier because I sleep now. I did it. I succeeded. I survived. And while I will always love my boys' baby and toddler years, I am so happy that part of my life is done.
