Dear Sadie,

I'm not sure how this day snuck up on me so fast. With all the chaos of moving and being on a different schedule than we're used to, it seems like I turned around and suddenly it was your birthday. I wanted time to prepare myself for this. You are turning three, after all. And three is big. I sat for almost an hour the other day, immersed in home videos from the last three years. My heart ached a little as I was faced with all these images of this little tiny baby who couldn't do anything without help. And then, as I watched, you crawled. And you walked. And then you could talk. And then you could form sentences and dance and ask questions. And suddenly, in just the course of an hour, you had gone from a baby to this charming, witty preschooler who jumps and dances and sings made-up songs about princesses and pancakes and pink piggies. It was three years smashed into one hour and I came away a little dazed. The memories of the day you were born are still so fresh - how could it have been three whole years?

I have a tendency to think of your birth as "uneventful." In the eyes of some, it may be. You entered this world with hardly a hitch (and with a scream that echoed through the entire maternity ward). But that moment - that moment when they placed a little bundle of you in my arms for the first time - that was eventful. I felt like my identity as a person, as a woman, doubled in that moment. I was still Natalie. But now, suddenly, I was Natalie - Sadie's mother. That identity still remains with me today. And even though for the rest of your life you'll have to share me with little siblings, I want you to know that you will always hold a special place in my heart because you are my first. You are the one who turned me from just another girl on the street to a mother. And you will always be my "first." My first kid to go off to school. My first kid to be baptized. My first kid to drive a car and go on a date and go to college.

Just do me one favor. Take your time getting to all those "first" milestones, would you? My heart just can't take this growing up business you seem to be getting the hang of so fast.

Happy Birthday my Sadie Shay!
Love,
Mommy