Dear Daughter

I tiptoed to your room tonight
And looked down at you smiling in your sleep
You were so lovely my heart nearly broke
And I thought how very much like sleeping beauty a little girl is
But when I tuck you in at night I never know how old you'll be when you wake
One evening you run in jump up on your dad's lap and throw your arms around his neck
The next morning you you might be much too grownup for that sort of thing
You're so quickly approaching the awkward age
Too young to drive the car and yet too old to be carried
Into the house half asleep on daddy's shoulder

I got a secret that I've never told you Sleeping Beauty
You're going on a very exciting trip
You'll gonna travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow
It will be a rapid journey and you'll travel light
Leaving behind you measles mumps freckles bumps bubblegum and me
Oh I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover
That the world is a great deal more exciting than your dad's lap
Yesterday you were blue-jeaned and pig-tailed the neighborhood's best tree-climber
Tomorrow you'll be blue-organdy and pony-tailed
And you'll view the world from a loftier perch a pair of high-heel shoes

Yesterday you could mend a doll's broken leg with a hug
Tomorrow you are going to be able to break a young man's heart with a kiss
Yesterday you could get lost one aisle away from me in a supermarket
Now I have to worry about losing you down another aisle to some strange young man
So you see where your growing pains stop mine begin
Yesterday you were kind of a pain in the neck sometimes when you were around
Tomorrow you are going to be an ache in my heart when you're not
Tomorrow you'll lay aside that jump rope and tie up the telephone lines for hours
And that little boy that used to push you in the mud
Well he'll fight to set out a dance with you

The clock upstairs is counting the minutes for you
And the sky upstairs is saving its brightest stars
And the sun is waiting with its shiniest day
I can't expect you to live in a dollhouse forever
Sooner or later a butterfly sheds its cocoon
And the smallest bird has got to try its wings
But when you grow up and out of my arms
And you finally get too big for your daddy's shirts
I'll still recall how you used to scatter dust and dolls
And partially through every room in the house
But you spread sunshine too

The dust is settled your mom picked up the dolls
But the sunshine that will always remain in the corners of our hearts
So here I am talking to you in your sleep
Because if you saw this look on my face you'd laugh
And if I tried to speak with this lump in my throat I'd cry
Yeah honey when I looked at you tonight you were a Sleeping Beauty
So I tiptoed over and I kissed you you didn't wake up
I knew you wouldn't
Cause according to the legend only the handsome young prince can open your eyes
And me I'm just the father of the future bride

So you sleep on pretty thing
Tomorrow you'll awake you'll be a young lady
And you won't even realize that you've changed courses in the middle of a dream
But you might notice a little difference in me
I'll look a little different somehow
A little older a little sadder but a whole lot richer
Tonight I kissed a princess and I feel like a king

~ Jimmy Dean ~

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