To a Sleeping Beauty

Dear daughter I tiptoed in your room tonight And I looked down at you smilin' in your sleep You were so lovely my heart nearly broke And I thought how very much like Sleeping Beauty a little girl is When I tuck you in at night I never know how old you'll be when you wake One evening you crawl on your dad's lap and throw your arms around his neck The next morning you might be much too grown up 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 have a secret that I've never told you, Sleeping Beauty You're going on a very exciting trip You'll travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow It's a rapid journey and you'll travel light Leaving behind you measles, mumps, freckles, bumps, bubble gum and me I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover that the world is more important than your daddy's lap Yesterday you were blue jean and pig tail, the neighborhood's best tree climber Tomorrow you'll be blue organdy and ponytailed 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'll be able to break a young man's heart with a kiss Huh, 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 You see, just at the point where your growing pains stop, mine begin Yesterday you were kind of a pain in the neck when you were around Tomorrow you'll be an ache in my heart when you're not Tomorrow you'll lay aside your jump rope and tie up the telephone lines, and that little boy that used to push you in the mud Well, he'll fight to sit out a dance with you The clock upstairs is countin' the minutes for you And the sky upstairs is savin' its' brighest stars And the sun is waitin' with its' shiniest day Oh I, I can't expect you to live in a dollhouse forever Sooner or later, the butterfly sheds its cocoon and the smallest bird must try its wings But when you grow up and out of my arms, when you finally get too big for my 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 will always fill the corners of our hearts So, here I am talking in your sleep Because, well, if you saw this look on my face, you'd laugh And if I spoke 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 According to the legend, only the handsome young prince can open your eyes And I'm just the father of the future bride So you sleep on, pretty thing, tomorrow you'll wake and 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 change in me I'll look a little different somehow A little sadder, a little wiser, but a whole lot richer Tonight, I kissed a princess and I feel like a king