Dear Jack,

You are now three. You have been three for three months and three weeks. You like "Cars" and "Kung Fu Panda" and singing. You sing loudly for the world to hear. You sing from your heart and I admire it because I never have. I'm too afraid to sing out loud, to release my voice to the judgement of the world. I hum instead. It's safer.
You ride your tricycle... I'M SORRY! I mean "motorcycle"! You ride your "motorcycle" as fast as you can. Pushing your body forward and stopping just before you slam into something.

"Stop!" I yell. And you look over your shoulder and smile.
"Gotcha, " your eyes laugh.

I drive the speed limit (most of the time) and buckle my seat belt (most of the time). I make car appointments to make sure the brakes are okay and the AC is cool enough to keep your hair from sticking to your head after a long day at preschool. I worry about the brakes and impatient drivers. I worry now.

You want to open doors and help us cook. You like stickers and place them all over the house, taunting the perfectionist in me that would normally pull them off.
"Those are an eyesore!"

But I leave them be. Because you put them there. I don't care what Apartment Therapy says about it. Those tiny fingers picked those stickers off the paper and placed them there. And that's worth more too me.
Things have changed, dearest friend. You are bigger and faster and more bold than before. You are challenging us everyday. We are all growing, us three. Three. You are three...

I'm not sure what I expected out of motherhood. I suppose I expected to be afraid. Some days I am. But most days I'm not. You have made me fearless. A warrior. I know what I want now. I want the world and the stars. I want to give you a place to miss one day. A place to look back on and think "those were the days".

But these are the days. Right now. I'm trying to scrape them together and tuck them safely away because the world moves to fast and I feel like it doesn't understand the delicateness of these moments. I don't think the world understands what this means to me, these hand prints on paper, these marker filled pictures...

By next summer you will be four and I'll be thinking "those were the days." When you loved "Cars" and "Kung Fu Panda". When you liked to open doors and help us cook. When you sang from your soul and your daredevil eyes taunted my caution. When the hand prints on the paper were smaller.

And you were more mine than the worlds.

It's all happening sweet prince. You are growing up so fast. So fast. It's all happening so fast...



"Those were the days..."