This is a very precious song to me, and it took me over a year to write. It's about the magic of childhood, and the instant nostalgia of being a parent.

The seed for this song was planted when I watched my oldest daughter at the doctor's office, deciding what sticker she wanted after her visit. She really thought about the decision. I could see the focus on her face, and in that moment I found it deeply beautiful. Partly because I was sleep-deprived, but also because there's something profound happening in her brain in those seconds. As an adult, it's hard to imagine choosing a sticker as important... but for a two-year old, it's an incredibly important decision, because it was one she was allowed to make all by herself. And so I wrote down a note to remember that moment, knowing I wanted to write a song about the feeling of watching my baby start to become a person. I sat on it for a while, and eventually came up with a few lines that I really loved... but then I was paralyzed. I felt pressured to do justice to this beautiful idea, and I didn't know how to carry it forward. It had been a long time since I had gotten that stuck on a song... but there I was. So it sat for months, and every attempt I made to develop it would end without progress.

This was all during the COVID lockdown period, and through luck and happenstance, I ended up scheduling a Zoom meeting to talk songwriting with one of my favorite writers ever - the inimitable Danny Schmidt. During that call, I asked him for advice on finishing a song that was stuck. He said, "Give yourself permission to write something bad." And with that... I wrote four more verses, trashed two of them, and edited the hell out of the two I'd kept. In the end, I had a song I think captures what I was chasing. I hope it speaks to you, too.