Those first five. Those precious first five years have flown by. I blinked and here we are.

I look back and think about all the times I wanted these days to go by faster. The times I couldn’t wait to get to bedtime. The days I wasted being irritable and angry because sometimes being a mom is just too hard. But now? Now, I wish I could have slowed it all down. Savored it a little longer. A little harder.

That beautiful wild child who fought like hell from the moment she was born has been burning that fire ever since. It has been five years filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. My baby is now a real little girl, and it is heartbreaking in the most beautiful way.

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I brought you home as this tiny, helpless, little 6-pound baby girl who needed her mama for everything. I spent days and nights just watching you, learning everything I could about this beautiful little human we created. In awe sometimes, in complete fear others.

I watched you struggle to adjust to the new world around you and struggled right there beside you. I watched with bated breath for all of those milestones to creep up. I waited and worried. Worried so, so much because that’s what I was supposed to do. Worried you wouldn’t meet them and equally as worried that you would because that meant time was getting away from us.

But for every moment of worry, there were 100 more of pure, genuine happiness. The first sleepy smile. The sound of those tiny baby giggles. The glow in your eyes as you slowly started to discover the world around you. And once you did, you never stopped.

I closed my eyes, and you were off running. We survived terrible twos and all things toddler–tantrums, tears, and testing your boundaries (and our limits). We made it to the three-nager stage and learned how much sass could possibly fit into a tiny body. We are at the tail end of the wild ride that was four, a year filled with even more personality and persistence than I could have ever dreamed.

Now, we’re on the verge of five and all of those crazy, chaotic moments have blurred together in the whirlwind that these last five years have been. It has been my greatest blessing in life to have a front-row seat to your world.

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To watch you grow into the insanely incredible little person you have become. To watch a little girl who has more empathy and compassion in her heart than anybody I have ever met. Who feels for everything and everyone around her on a whole other level. Who is emotional to the extreme in the best and worst of ways.

To watch you have this insatiable thirst for knowledge. We’ve gone from ABCs to days filled with a thousand questions about how the world works. The endless “Why?” and “How?” questions that fill our conversations.

To watch you build relationships with your friends and family without my help. You give everything to the people you love, and one day you are going to realize what an incredible thing that is. One day you are going to realize just how lucky people are to have someone like you in their world. We’ve known from the second you came into it that we’re the luckiest people alive that you chose us to be your mom and dad.

Now? Now, we have to get ready to watch you start your next chapter. Now, we look back with nothing but pride over the little girl we are getting ready to send off into the world. The little girl who has already taken it by storm. The little girl who loves so big and laughs so loud. The little girl who, when we blinked, suddenly doesn’t seem so little anymore. For some reason, five hits differently.

Now we’re ready for what is sure to be a fierce and ferocious five.