Trace Adkins - You're Gonna Miss This - Lyrics Meaning

This tender song, written by Ashley Gorley and Lee Thomas Miller, earned Adkins an award for Single of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music awards

Gorley got the idea for the song one day when he was at home one day. A repairman was working on his house and his two toddlers were running around the house and getting into mischief. After they disappeared with the repairman's tools, Gorley apologized but the repairman had taken it all in stride because he had kids himself. Once they had the idea, he and Thomas Miller worked backward from the line "You're Gonna Miss This" to create and build the story around one female character.

In the first verse, the girl is in the car with her mom getting dropped off at school, but wishing that she was 18 and on her own. The second verse fast-forwards a few years, to a time when she's a young bride in an apartment of her own and yearning for the day when she can buy a house and have babies. Finally, five years later, she's got all the things she'd wished for - her babies are crying, the house is chaotic, and she's apologizing to the plumber who's there to fix her water heater.

The chorus reminds her that even though she might not think so now, the day will come when she'll miss all the special little moments in her life:

You're gonna miss this

You're gonna want this back

You're gonna wish these days

Hadn't gone by so fast