By Jemuel Cainglet Salterio
“I think we’ve established that for you to have a healthy home, you also have to have a healthy relationship.”
That is what celebrity content creator Dani Barretto maintained when asked about her marriage of five years with Xavi Panlilio. The couple has been together for seven years now, but they tied the knot in 2019. They have a daughter, Millie, who is turning five in September.
“We still cannot just rely on another person to take care of Millie,” Dani said. “We bring her and pick her up from her therapy and whatever activities, we always make it a point that Millie is our priority.”
Dani thought she was going to be a spoiler. “I’m a spoiler, but I am also a disciplinarian,” she admitted. “I’m just a cool mom, but hindi rin pala. When it comes to your daughter, you really have a natural instinct that just comes out. We tend to neutralize each other.”
Before, the parents were simply just overprotective of their daughter. “There’s a bigger world out there and we cannot just be there always for Millie,” Dani said. “Our instinct was we just want to keep her safe from the world.”
Millie is now ready for her baby brother as Dani is slated to give birth to her second child, a boy.
“Millie is now asking us to buy baby toys,” Dani said. “Malapit na kasi ‘yung second baby and she could feel it. So lately, she sleeps in our room even if she has her own bedroom. Everywhere we go to, she wants to hold on to us.
“She knows that there’s a baby coming soon. She can probably feel it, too. Babies are very smart. They know and they feel. So as much as possible, Xavi and I, we spend more time with her now. So she will not feel neglected.”
The dad and mom, respectively, play the “good cop, bad cop” in parenting to discipline their daughter. “It depends who saw anything bad that Millie did,” Xavi said. “It could be me or Dani or vice versa.”
Millie suffered speech delay basically her whole life and it was only recently that she learned to talk.
“Last year, she started to talk,” Dani happily shared. “This year, she started talking to us. May improvement na. Nagsasalita na siya talaga. We are not yet ready to put her in the big school.
“We want her to be fully developed with her speech before we put her in a big school so she will not have a hard time.”
Xavi, who’s a psychology graduate, maintained, “I think the way it could be is that you’re not doing it for yourself. You are doing it for the quality of life for your child.
“At that age, the formative years of the kid is very important. It’s the stepping stone for everything. It’s not for us. It’s for her.”
Admittedly, it was a struggle for both of them to bring Millie to her speech therapist. “The more you made it longer, the kid will have a harder time,” Dani said. “We did all the necessary things for our daughter. This is for her future. So she will not have a hard time.
“The past five years was a struggle, But seeing her talk to us now, every single new word, we would cry. Every improvement was super worth it. It was like she’s one again.
“That was what happened when your kid was just one and she had every new thing that she did. Late kami doon. That happened with us when Millie turned four. We heard her new words, we had conversations with her. To Millie, every day was just a new beginning.”
Although Dani and Xavi didn’t plan to have another baby this year, they consider their second one a blessing from God. They agreed they are both ready when the new baby comes out.
The couple recently graced the Purple Hearts health vitamins launch with Kryzl Jorge and the “It’s Showtime” kids — Argus Aspiras, Princess Kathryn “Kulot” Caponpon, Jaze Capili and Kelsey Lasam.
“When we found out the second one was a boy, we immediately said, ‘Okay, we’re done,” said Dani, who disclosed motherhood really changed her. “We now have a set. We’re happy because ever since we found out that I am expecting again, the blessings came one after another. Non-stop for us and our family.
“God backed us up. He probably said, ‘Ako na bahala sa inyo.’ Feeling ko we’re really ready now than before.”
Xavi maintained, “Now, it has been five years since the previous one. We grew up individually and as a couple. We’re wiser this time around.”
