Seriously, if you had told me five years ago that I’d one day be buying “light up shoes” for my kids, I would have laughed in your face and said, “NEVER!” Never, ever, in a million years would I have thought I’d buy these things for my kids. Never. For so many reasons; I can’t even count the ways in which I felt completely opposed to all that “light up shoes” are and represent. But five years ago I did not know what I know now.
I did not know then that it so doesn’t matter what kind of sneakers they are wearing– even if they are “light up shoes.” I did not know then that they’d genuinely want “light up shoes” so very, very much that their little hearts would skip a beat and they’d become almost breathless at the mere thought of somehow acquiring them. I did not know then that I’d actually really ‘get it’ why, and how, they wanted them. I did not know then that deep in my soul I’d feel such overflowing, unreserved, gushing adoration for these boys. I did not know then that I’d want the world for them so badly; that I’d do anything in my power for them; that my heart would melt a hundred times a day because of them– even amidst them driving me absolutely crazy and making me feel like I have truly zero parenting skills and pushing me to the brink of numerous nervous breakdowns on so many, many occasions daily. I did not know then that it would make me so happy to see them so happy with something so tiny and minor as “light up shoes.” I did not know then that at this point I’d fully grasp how very quickly they are growing up, how very short life is, and how very menial “light up shoes” are in the grand scheme of it all. I did not know then what I know now: That I would become capable of just letting it all go and being so giddy happy while watching them stomp around, delighted, this morning, wearing their new “light up shoes.”