Sadie Pearl is Three

Well, Sadie-Boo, in just a few hours you will turn three years old. Honestly, I cannot wrap my head around that fact. Tonight you and I spent 15 minutes looking at pictures from your first few years of life and it blows my mind how the time has flown by.

You were born on November 11, 2005. It was just at the beginning of all the madness surrounding our pending move to Utah. You only spent a few weeks in our house in NJ before we sold it and moved up the street to Abuela's house. You spent three months there before boarding a plane with the rest of us and flying to the only home you've ever known, right here to Salt Lake City, Utah.

It's no secret that my feelings were mixed when we first found out that we were going to be adding you to our family. As I wrote when I broke the news of the pregnancy here in Jawdy's Basement on April 25, 2005....

How could this be? We are not supposed to be able to conceive!?! First emotion, disbelief. Then shock. Anger. Resentment. Virtual hatred of everything that is the reproductive process. I withdrew. I was rude to Deb, I was a nasty person for days. Unaccepting of what was fact. Emotionally, I was spent by 10am each day. Between thoughts of bankruptcy (paying for another daycare) and guilt (why could this not be happening to my sister, who is trying so hard for her FIRST), and selfishness (what will become of my home office now that we need the room?)

The title of that post was revealing on it's own - "Anything That I've Ever Done That Ultimately Was Worthwhile Initially Scared Me to Death." How true!!

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. Later on the post I explain how I was OK with it, that I had decided I had two choices - to accept or reject a child. Obviously I would decide to cherish the thought and the post came to a close with me stating that fact:

I emerged from my self-imposed funk and decided I had two choices. One was to resent my new child and the other was to come to appreciate fatherhood more and agree that enlonging the period of diaper changing and pureed squash was, indeed, a gift from God. No need to stop and think about my decision. So there is going to be a new baby! A new bundle of joy. New smiles and new noises. Another set of first steps, first foods, first words.

I get mushy writing this because it's shocking to me that I ever felt that way. I remember telling Mommy that I wished you would be perfect so it would make life easier. Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Well, sweet girl, my wish came true. You have been about the most wonderful joy a Dad could ever pray for. The answer to all my prayers during that pregnancy. You've made being a Dad the easiest job in the world.

It has not always been easy! Just in the last year, I've seen things from a two year old that I've NEVER seen or read about in my life. Like the time you found a black Sharpie, climbed up three drawers to the top of your dresser, opened the Sharpie and redecorated your dresser top, window sill and several stuffed animals sitting on that sill. I remember the queasy feeling in my stomach when I discovered that. I wanted to sue the schmucks who made those damn Sharpie pens.

Then there was the incident in the motel we stayed at the night we lost power here last winter. You decided to do your best Mary Lou Retton on the bed and fell face first into the corner of the headboard, creating a sound that no parent should ever hear. Hospital? Not you. Just a softball sized lump that sat over your right eye for two months.

Mommy and I spent a few hundred bucks buying fencing to keep your tiny body centralized when you learned to crawl. I don't think an electric fence would have kept you from disappearing every 10 minutes. The most used phrase in our house for the past two years has, without a doubt, been "WHERE'S SADIE?!?!?!" The ensuing search for you would no doubt end up with an entire roll of toilet paper stuffed in the toilet, Mommy's perfume sprayed all over you, several drawers of your clothes spread about the floor as you make decisions on what to try on next.....it goes on and on and on.....

I could not mention your birthday without also thinking about Buba Pearl, who passed away in the summer before you were born. It's a shame you never got to meet her, but you got the ultimate honor of getting her name. It's amazing, too, because so many of your mannerisms are exact replicas of Buba's....like carrying around a napkin for no reason and wiping your mouth with it - even when you are not eating.

Happy Birthday Sadie Pearl Borenstein. I love you very much and could never imagine my life being as full and joyful as it's been if you had not been with me the last three years.

UPDATE: See pics and vids of the birthday celebration HERE.