5a.m.

The boy is learning how to be a good sleeper. We toss him in the sack at 6 or 7 and he usually arrives at Dreamland in 15 minutes. I imagine Dreamland for Elijah to contain giant piles of dog hair he can cram into his mouth, huge vats of applesauce and many many rattles he can bash himself in the face with.

But here’s the rub: Eli can’t sleep past 5a.m. You mathematicians out there have probably calculated that he is still getting 11 hours of sleep. But I’m talking about my sleep here, not his. Every morning at the stroke of 5, he chirps, spits and howls until Di or I get him out of the crib. Di and I silently fight over who has to get him up. I usually lose because she has a lightening fast uppercut. And, well, she always takes the 1a.m. feeding.

So I’ll put him in our bed and play with him until my official wake up time of 6:30. And by “play with him” I mean sleep with my finger dangling over Eli so he can yank on it.

Well, a few days ago I caught Diana staring at Eli with a thoughtful look on her face. I imagined she was checking the air for poo evidence. She looked at me and said, “I wonder if he’s hungry at 5a.m. Do you want to try feeding him tomorrow morning?”

Sure enough, during the next morning’s chirp a thon, I gave him a bottle and he went right back to sleep. And continued to sleep until 7.

We’re morons.