Sitting here in my living room, a little after 10 pm, I smile to myself at the littlest character that is supposed to be going to sleep right now. I'm listening to my daughter, who is 16-months old, put on her nightly stand-up routine via the baby monitor in her room.

The baby monitor, which used to play a very critical role in my life as a new mom, is now there mainly just to tell me when she goes to sleep and when she wakes up. But every night, I get a glimpse into who she is becoming, by what she does in her room before she finally goes to sleep. Right now, I hear her practicing her animal noises. She's very good at making the "Ooh, Ooh, Ooh" of a monkey, and the "Caw, Caw" of a bird.

Every time she does these things, I can't help but get a huge grin on my face. Now, she's gone into this endless babbling where she's trying out a ton of different sounds. I do my best to cherish these times, because I know very soon, that the babbling will be no more and words will forever take their place. Everyone tells me over and over again that the baby and toddler stages of children vanish before your eyes and so I try and remind myself every day to cherish them while they're here. The beauty of my baby monitor is that it helps me do just that...30 minutes at a time.