And just when you think he'd have to sleep...

We've gone since Tuesday with a horrible sleep pattern, which is not a lot of sleep. He's at three and a half months. Baby books don't help. They were written by people who obviously had no children or long enough after the children were grown so the parents were being nostalgic for a time when their children needed them every minute instead of asking to be let out of the car a block from school.

One book insists that he should be eating five (and maybe six, seven, or eight) times a day now. He's eaten five times since midnight and no, I don't think he'll only eat three more times today. Then I think maybe he's not getting enough to eat and that's why he's eating all the time. Then I take him to infant massage and get him weighed and find out he's getting close to 16 pounds. The kid is eating. He's deliciously plump. The witch from Hansel and Gretel would snap him up in a second.

Another suspect for night waking at the three-month mark is that he's just so interested in things that he's forgetting to eat and has to tank up at night. I might believe this if he wasn't eating at least every two to three hours during the day and putting on a half pound every week.

So I'm at my worst when I have absolutely no book advice to guide me or console me. We've tried keeping him up in the evening; we've tried letting him sleep. I've tried waking up and feeding him until he is absolutely running over. Nothing seems to help.

I thought maybe he was bored going just on errands with me during the day so I took him to the (world famous) zoo. We did great to start with, trotted off to see the pandas. If you haven't been (and you really should go), the pandas are in a walled-off section of the zoo with many, many signs saying, "Please keep your voices down so as not to disturb the pandas." We get to the absolute center of the panda exhibit and bam, A starts yelling. Blood-curdling, please look my mom is murdering me,the volume goes up to 11 yelling. So I apologize to the panda attendant and try to make my way out as quickly as possible with all the herds of people blocking the walkway. Thank you, clueless parents with big-ass strollers, for being so stupidly oblivious and blocking the damn ramp while I subtly change my "Excuse me" to an "Excuse you!" May I never join your ilk.

I sat and played with him out of earshot of the pandas, but the unfortunate problem is that the pandas are right in the middle of the zoo and the zoo is very hilly. So once playing was done and he was returned to the stroller, that was a lot of pushing uphill with a screaming baby, including getting splattered with bird poop in the aviary the stroller path passes through. He fell asleep not long after the bird cages that are by the koalas, for you locals or SD Zoo addicts.

I think the worst part is that now he's found his voice and boy can he yell. I haven't placed blame for this on one side of the family or the other (yet) since both sides can fairly lay claim to a good throaty yelling ability. But if the sleeplessness goes on much longer I'm going to lay the blame with the ILs. We're seeing the pediatrician next week for his (ersatz) four-month check up and so hopefully she'll have some advice.

Three months does seem to be the "lights on, someone's home" part of babydom, though. He's just gotten so outgoing and talkative that it's fun when it's not 2AM. He sings along with me when I sing at him while I change his diaper. He's cooing and smiling a lot. Right now he is desperately trying to sit up from a recline on my lap. Everything is going in his mouth nowadays, so he's got that down too. This weekend we'll have to go get him some clothes since he's rapidly approaching the weight limits of most of his 6-month sized stuff.