5:40 a.m.

At 5:40 this morning, our "alarm clock" went off. Not the clock radio-- the little 3.5 month old who sleeps in the room next to us.

I laid there for a minute, wishing him back to sleep. It wasn't going to happen without some help, so I got up, walked in his room, put his pacifier in, walked back to my room, crawled back in bed and his "alarm" went off again.

This time Shane rolled over and said, "Do you want me to put his plug back in?" ("Plug" is the affectionate name we have for Noah's pacifier.)

"Sure, but at this point I don't think it will work. I think he's hungry." I said sleepily. I secretly hoped Shane would take the hint, but sadly, he didn't.

Off Shane goes to Noah's bedroom to pop the pacifier back in and then a quick trip to the bathroom. On his return trip back, I hear Noah spit out the pacifier on my super-duper-hear-the-neighbors-three-blocks-over-sensitive monitor. "Shane!" I called out. "He spit it out!"

"AUGH." Back he goes.

He gets Noah settled once again and returns to our room within seconds. And back to bed he goes.

"Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The cry pierces my ears not even a minute later. He stops crying, but ensures that we know he is awake with more grunts and discontented sounds.

I let out a dejected sigh and reluctantly pull myself from under the warm covers and begin my sleepy walk to the kitchen to fix Noah a bottle.

"Well, at least he sleeps better than he did when he was really young, " my husband calls out in his best fake sympathetic voice.

"Mmmm hmmmm," I grunt in disgust. Easy for him to say, he's still under the covers and can turn the monitor off now that I am up. Sheesh.

I go in Noah's room and when he sees me, he greets me with a brightest smile that could have lit up the early morning dark of his room. He also kicks his legs and waves his arms around in excited anticipation.

"Why hello, you little monkey. I'm glad you're in such a good mood, 'cuz I AM TIRED!" I say in my Mommy singsong cheery voice. I pick him up out of his crib and sit on the edge of the bed that is in his room. Noah drinks up hungrily, only stopping to look up and smile every once in a while.

I keep eyeing the bottle, counting the ounces that keep disappearing. Each ounce brings me one step closer to returning to my nice warm bed to catch a few more winks before daylight.

Noah finishes up his bottle and for the first time in a long time, just lays in my arms contentedly. He begins to coo and smile. He reaches up to touch my face and tug at my hair. He starts to have a full blown conversation with me. I have no idea what he is saying but I'm sure he was pulling out all the tricks to melt his mommy's heart so that he didn't have to go back to bed. It was working.

I sat there looking into my son's bright, smiling eyes and decided that I had a choice. I could put my happy smiling baby back in bed to entertain himself so that I could go back and get some much needed sleep; or, I could enjoy the moment. I thought to myself, "One of these days, I'm going to long to have this moment back. One of these days, he is going to be all grown up, sleeping across town, or across the province or maybe even across the country in the arms of another woman." But not this morning.

5:40 a.m. Sweet.