Growing up!

It's late.....really late....it's after 11 and even for a stay at home mother that's late....I'm up because we are in the middle of fierce sounding thunderstorm.....being a home grown born and raised Kansas girl I can sleep through them with no problem.....in fact I have found the older I get the better I sleep during a thunderstorm.....but I'm up because my daughter has not yet developed that appreciation for a good thunderstorm.....here's where it gets wierd....I have always been able to count on an extra body in the bed on nights when the wind howled like it is now.....when the lighting and thunder were working together to seem oh so much more menacing than they really are....as they are tonight....so when it started to get loud.....I got up and checked on my girl.....she was sleeping......I sat up and had a cigarette....still no whining or calling out to me.....I stayed up till about 2 and not once did she call out to me.....the next morning I asked her (as I do every morning) how she slept....good was the answer I got....now this may seem wierd to some of you but in my own mind this was just one more example of how the more she grows the harder and more painful it is for me....I should be thankful that I no longer have to stay up late and make silly funny jokes so she will calm down and not be afraid of a thunderstorm.....however I am heartbroken....my daughter is growing before my eyes and I am trying to keep myself from wishing she would stop.....I want her to grow up I want her to be able to cope and handle no matter what comes her way....that's what my mind says......if only my heart could catch up.....I will be a wake every night there is a thunderstorm for the rest of my life.....I just know I will.....maybe along time from now I'll be up late listening to the rain and wind and thunder and I'll get a phone call from my grown daughter....she'll apologize for it being so late and waking me up (as if) and she ask me what that song was I used to sing to her late at night to get her to calm down and fall asleep when it was storming....and my grandchild will be crying and whining in the back ground....I'll tell her and she say good night mom I'll call you tomorrow.....the next day I'll ask her how she slept and she'll sound groggy and make some disgusted sound and say I can't wait till they can sleep through a stormy night......I won't say anything to her but I will again feel the sharp pain of understanding.....because I could have waited....I could wait a few more years....