Once a Mommy.... Always a Mommy

I have a little confession to make - I have rarely seen my 17 year old daughter sleep. Kendra was a high-strung baby. I say this with much kindness as she likely inherited the trait from me. She hardly ever slept. My parents have few memories of my childhood, but they both agreed that I would lay in bed even as a very small child and recite every nursery rhyme, sing every song I knew, etc. to keep from going to sleep. I hated the thought of missing anything.
Kendra has not ever had the "in bed by 8" routine. Perhaps it was Kendra who trained us to let her sleep when she was tired instead of an arbitrary bedtime. When she was a baby, her daddy worked nights, so she and I would wait until he got home from work around midnight before we went to bed.
Last night we were all up very late, but she had to go to work this morning. She came home a little while ago and was laying on the floor in her bedroom listening to Frank Sinatra on her MP3 player because she was too tired to remove the clothes and paper and books off of the bed. I cleared it off and suggested she lay down. To my surprise she did just that, and she has been sound asleep for almost an hour now. I keep finding myself tip-toeing down the hallway to peek in on her, just like she was a baby. I am so not used to her being asleep when I'm awake. We never do things quite the orthodox way - Kendra and I - but we seem to figure it out along the way together. Sweet dreams baby girl.