ShareThisOne night, when she was not quite 2, my daughter launched herself over the side of her crib, padded out to her brother's room, climbed into the spare bunk and fell asleep like a "big girl" in a "big girl" bed.
And the next morning, she got on her Fisher-Price phone and began inviting her friends to come to a "sleepover."
I'm not sure where she got the term "sleepover." No one at her sleepovers slept very much, least of all her mother.
That would be me, Joanna's Mom, as some of her friends liked to call me.
("Joanna's Mom, can we have more blankets?"
"Uh, sure, but what's wrong with the ones I gave you?"
"They got wet."
"How did they get wet?"
"They got too close to the fireplace."
"The blankets got wet in the fireplace?"
"No, they got wet from the root beer we used to put out the fire. Can we have more root beer, Joanna's Mom?")
For 25 years, thanks to my daughter, her two brothers and their posse of friends, I was like God: I neither slumbered nor slept. I didn't even blink.
Either they stayed up half the night and kept me awake, or they went out and I stayed up waiting for them to come back.
Not that I'm complaining. Those years slipped by like sand through my fingers. The tighter I tried to hold them, the faster they were gone. So what if I didn't get much sleep? I had a good time. Besides, it's like my mother and her mother always said: You can sleep all you want when you're dead.
My favorite part of my daughter's "no sleepovers" came just before dawn. I'd make one final bed check and discover that -- after hours of whispering and snickering and thumping around -- they were finally out like the batteries in their flashlights.
Picture five little girls fast asleep, dreams dancing behind paper-thin eyelids, all piled up together like a litter of kittens in a beautiful mess of Cabbage Patch dolls, sticker books, root-beer cans, pizza boxes and, right in the middle, my daughter.
Standing there in my slippers and nightgown and raccoon-circled eyes, I didn't need to sleep. I just wanted to close my eyes and listen to them breathe.
And the next thing I knew, they were all grown up, beautiful young women with interesting lives, far too busy for little-girl things like going to sleepovers and hanging out with Joanna's Mom.
Imagine my surprise recently when my soon-to-be-married daughter decided, for her "bachelorette party," that she and four of her bridesmaids would fly to Las Vegas and "sleep over" at our house.
And so they did. For three days, it was like old times. They slept in our guest room (on makeshift beds, not on the floor), took turns for the shower and stayed up late talking and laughing and reminiscing about all the years, all the memories, all the history they share.
Saturday night, when they got dressed up and drop-dead gorgeous to go out on the town, they actually let me go, too.
Eight long hours later, when they were finally tucked in bed, I slipped into their room.
Picture five grown women fast asleep in a beautiful mess of suitcases, hairdryers, makeup, magazines and shoes -- so many shoes -- and, right in the middle, my daughter.
Standing there in my slippers and nightgown and raccoon-circled eyes, I didn't need to sleep. I just wanted to close my eyes and listen to them snore.
Little girls grow up to find their own identities, chart their own paths. And that is as it should be. But their moms will always be their moms.
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077, or at www.sharonrandall.com.)
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