Dear Daughter,I tiptoed your room tonight, looked down at you smiling, you 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.Next morning you, 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 asleepover the night.I've got a secret that I've never told you, sleeping beauty.You're going on a very exciting trip.You're going to travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow.It'll be a rapid journey and you'll travel light.Leaving behind you measles, mumps, freckles, bumps, bubble gum, and me.Oh, I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover that the world is a great deal moreexciting than your dad's lap.Yesterday you were a blue jean pigtail, 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 heels.Shoes.Yesterday you could mend a doll's broken leg with a hug.Tomorrow you're going to be able to break some young man's heart with a kiss.Yesterday you could get lost one aisle away from me in the supermarket.Now I've got 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're around.Tomorrow you're 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.That little boy that used to push you in the mud, he'll fight to sit down and dance with you.Oh, 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's got to try its wings.But when you grow up, you're going to be a dollhouse.You're going to be a dollhouse.Out of my arms.You finally get too big for your daddy's shirts.I'll still recall how you scattered dust and dolls impartially through every room in the house.But you spread sunshine, too.The dust has settled.Your mom's picked up all the dolls.Put the sunshine.That'll 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.Because according to the legend, only the handsome young prince can open your eyes.And me?I'm just a father of the future bride.So, you sleep on, pretty thing.Tomorrow, you'll wake.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.Maybe.I look a little different.I'm somehow a little older.A little sadder.But a whole lot richer.Tonight,I kissed a princess.And I feel like a king.Subtitles by the Amara.org communitywww.amara.org