Night time hilarity

For the last week, Noah has been waking up between 1-3 in the morning and won't go back to sleep for a couple of hours. He isn't crying, but he is wide wide wide awake! He is actually pretty hilarious when he wakes up in the middle of the night. Lots of talking and shrieking (happy shrieking, but shrieking none the less). He also does what we call 'donkey kicks,' where he brings both of his legs straight up in the air, at a 90-degree angle from his body, and then will kick them straight down into the mattress, which makes a really loud, hollow sound. If Grant or I go to the side of his crib and tell him to go to sleep, he give the biggest smile, like he is so happy to see us and wants to play. It's so cute.

I can't decide whether we should just let him play in the crib by himself until he goes back to sleep on his own or if we should pick him up and help him to go back to sleep as quickly as possible. If we didn't have to get him up at 5:45 a.m. to go to work/day care, I wouldn't care if he played in the middle of the night. But since we can't let him sleep in, I worry about him getting enough sleep at night. I need to do some internet research for my internet baby regarding what to do. (My mom calls Noah an 'internet baby' because Grant and I are always running to look up online how to raise our child). Anyway, hopefully this phase will pass and he'll go back to sleeping most of the night soon.