My favorite moment so far in this life...

This morning I had the best moment I've ever had. It was the most special thing I've ever experienced. I don't know if I can describe what happened in a way to give it justice, but I'll try because I want to always remember it.

This morning I was awakened to some restless sounds coming from the co-sleeper next to me. I looked at the clock and saw that I had just put him to sleep an hour earlier, so he should not be waking up yet. I was slightly annoyed. Then I looked into the co sleeper and all of that annoyance melted away into a feeling I can't describe.

He was wide awake. He was just looking around perfectly content. He saw me peering over the bed at him, we made eye contact, and he smiled at me. I smiled back at him and he responded with an even bigger wide open mouth smile. I picked him up as fast as I could, held him close, told him I loved him. Then I put him on a pillow on my lap where he fell right back to sleep. A few minutes later I returned him to his co-sleeper and we slept for another two hours.

First of all, I am just so proud of him. He is such a good baby. He wakes up from his naps or at night calmly without crying. He grunts a little, but he mostly just squirms and looks around. I remember reading in the book babywise that if you followed their technique that your baby would wake up happy and cooing instead of crying. I thought that was bologna! The book was right though. It melts my heart when I check on him during naps and he is wide awake just looking around happily. That alone would have made me happy this morning - to look into his co-sleeper and see him awake and happy. But when he smiled at me, I could not hug him fast enough. It was the first time that he smiled at me without me "coaxing" it out of him. He just saw me a smiled. My best friend said that was his first time to tell me "I love you." I didn't think about it that way at the time, but I think she's right. That's the way it felt.

I love you too, Levi.