| Dear daughter I tiptoed to your room tonight
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| And I looked down at you smiling in your sleep
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| You were so lovely my heart nearly broke
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| And I thought how very much like sleeping beauty a little girl is
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| When I tuck you in at night I never know how old you’ll be when you wake
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| One evening you crawl on your dad’s lap and throw your arms around his neck
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| The next morning you might be much too grownup for that sort of thing
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| You’re so quickly approachin' my awkward age
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| Too young to drive a car and yet too old to be carried
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| Into the house half asleep on daddy’s shoulder
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| I have a secret that I’ve never told you Sleeping Beauty
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| You’re going on a very exciting trip
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| You’ll travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow
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| It’s a rapid journey and you’ll travel light
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| Leavin' behind your measles mumps freckles bumps bubblegum and me
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| I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover
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| That the world is more important than your daddy’s lap
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| Yesterday you were blue-jeaned and pig-tailed the neighborhood’s best
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| tree-climber
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| Tomorrow you’ll be blue-organdie and ponny-tailed
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| And you’ll view the world from a loftier perch a pair of high-heel shoes
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| Yesterday you could mend a doll’s broken leg with a hug
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| Tomorrow you’ll be able to break a young man’s heart with a kiss
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| Ha ha yesterday you could get lost one aisle away from me in a supermarket
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| Now I have to worry about losin' you down another aisle to some strange young
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| man
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| You see just at the point where your growing pains stop mine begin
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| Yesterday you were kind of a pain in the neck when you were around
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| Tomorrow you’ll be an ache in my heart when you’re not
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| Tomorrow you’ll lay aside your jumprope and tie up the telephone lines
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| And that little boy that used to push you in the mud
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| Well he’ll fight to set out a dance with you
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| The clock upstairs is countin' the minutes for you
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| And the sky upstairs is savin' its brightest stars
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| And the sun is waitin' with its shinest day
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| Oh I can’t expect you to live in a dollhouse forever
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| Sooner or later the butterfly sheds its cocoon and the smallest bird must try
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| its wings
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| But when you grow up and out of my arms when you finally get too big for my
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| shirts
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| I’ll still recall how you used to scatter dust and dolls
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| And partially through every room in the house but you spread sunshine too
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| The dust is settled your mom picked up the dolls
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| But the sunshine will always fill the corners of our hearts
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| So here I am talkin' in your sleep
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| Because well if you saw this look on my face you’d laugh
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| And if I spoke with this lump in my throat I’d cry
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| Yeah honey when I looked at you tonight you were a Sleeping Beauty
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| So I tiptoed over and I kissed you you didn’t wake up I knew you wouldn’t
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| According to the legend only the handsome young prince can open your eyes
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| And I’m just the father of a future bride
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| So you sleep on pretty thing tomorrow you’ll awake and you’ll be a young lady
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| And you won’t even realize that you’ve changed courses in the middle of a dream
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| But you might notice this little change in me
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| I look a little different somehow a little sadder a little wiser but a whole
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| lot richer
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| Tonight I kissed a princess and I feel like a king |