Happy birthday My Reader Girl.

You're 9.

This is my gift to you: a collection of letters I wrote when you were little. They're kind of funny, actually.

See, every time I had to teach you something new, I had no idea what I was doing. So I'd sit down and write. These are your daddys confessions, me trying to figure things out, trying to imagine something nobody had done before, just for you.

You'll find letters about teaching you to walk. To talk. To use the toilet. To sleep. It was a whole adventure, trust me.

And now look at you. Smart, curious, always ready to build something from scratch. That makes me so proud, because that's exactly what your dad loves most in the world: learning something new and deciding to just go for it. That's art. And you've got it.

All that coffee I drank, all those books I read late at night, that was me training for you. All those long nights sleeping next to you, watching the clock, waiting for you to wake up, getting your bottle ready so you could be strong for whatever came next.