Rock a By and Goodnight

Being a mother to a one year old...17 month old to be exact...you have to have some ground rules. Now I always told myself my kids would have a bedtime but I'd never be that parent that makes her child go to bed while the suns still out. Making her close the blinds and lay down while its still bright in the room. Well my daughter has been waking up extra early lately. Let's say around 7is, sometimes 8 :/
I'm not much of an early bird so I'm freaking out about this. I only get to sleep in on the weekends so I try to take advantage of this as much as I can. So when my little angel turns around and starts calling "mom" I rub my eyes and look at the clock. Its ruff.
Anyway my daughter has put herself on a new schedule. Around 7 o'clock she starts to rub her eyes and whine because she is ready to do our daily time to get ready for night night routine. Take a bath, brush teeth (even though she only has 6 we don't want them to get ugly :)), pj's, then lay down and watch some tv till we fall asleep. So its around 8 to 8:30 when Elena closes her eyes for the night.
This afternoon when we are doing our now EARLY routin and getting settled into bed I turn on the tv and lay there for a while...I close the blinds and start to notice there still is some light outside. The sun is still up! What is going on!!
Have I become the mom I never wanted to be!!??!! Should I try to keep Elena up a little longer or just let her schedule just roll on??
I think I shall let her schedule roll and see how it does. She's only going to bed an hour earlyer than usual. The upside is that I do get to see her in the morning before work and I'm not staying up late anymore. So I'm not moody and grumpy because lack of sleep.
I guess its not so bad :)