3

I don’t know where to begin. I feel a little bit overwhelmed by the fact that my daughter is three years old today. I don’t know why it feels so much more profound than when each of my boys turned three…. Perhaps it is the fact that she is my baby, that she is the last one. Perhaps it is the fact that she stuns me every day with her smarts and her sense of humor. Perhaps I just never believed that that little pink bundle who relied on me so heavily and barely slept for the first 14 months of her life would ever be big enough or independent enough to pedal her own bike, brush her own teeth, and keep up with the big boys.

The truth is, she does more than keep up with the boys, and she’s not a baby anymore. But she is such a little lady – her manners are beyond reproach, and she cleans up after herself. And, well, just LOOK at her….

She takes my breath away.

I’ll never forget the moment I learned I was having a girl – the shock, the happiness, the disbelief, and the fear that they had it wrong. I’m so glad they didn’t. Yesterday she looked at me and said “I want to be like you Mommy.” My first reaction was of course, “Awwwwwwww!!” My second was “Um, you might want to think a little harder about that….”  :)

Happy Birthday sweet, sweet, Madelyn. Mommy loves you more than you will ever imagine possible. xoxoxo