From the moment Alice could move on her own, she has loved shoes.
Last summer, 9 months
Her obsession used to be with bigger people’s shoes — mine, Eric’s, Lucy’s. At daycare, she’ll grab her providers’ son’s boot and drop it with a thunk in front of us, jabbering and pointing. What she’s saying is anyone’s guess.
Now that she has her OWN shoes, though, she’ll wander into the front hallway, grab a pair, throw them at you, turn around and sit in your lap, then point at the shoes until you put them on her tinky toes.
At 8 a.m. today, that ended up in this:
Sleeper with shoes on top. She’s a fashionista.
Later, the process happened with these:
I KNOW! CUTE, EH? TOO BAD I’M PERMANENTLY DEAF NOW!
At almost 15 months, Alice says many words: Bah (ball), wuff-wuff (dog), dah-dee (daddy), no-no-no-no (I’ve taught her to wave her finger like a diva) and nigh-nigh (night-night). She also throws perfectly pitched kisses, complete with sucking her palm, fingers splayed over her face, to produce the drawn out kiss noise.
But her favourite word on the planet is mom.
This comes in many forms: Meh. Mum-Mum. Mumma. Maw. Mam. More often than not, it’s in the form of a question, with a lilt at the end.
She repeats it. Over and over and over. Whether I’m in the room or not. During diaper changes. While playing. In between bites of food. At daycare. Even in the middle of the night, when she pushes the edges of wakefulness — “Mumma?” — then silence as she drifts back to slumber.
She’s like a lost, wandering, confused sheep. Mom?Mam?Mumma? instead of baabaabaa.
Over the Christmas holidays, when this really kicked in, we were at the Pickering Town Centre for the morning. Alice’s questioning call echoed through the entire building, wafting up to the roof and floating down. I was right beside her almost the entire time, smiling and rolling my eyes at everyone snickering at my repetitive munchkin, my skipping CD on two chubby toddler legs.
It’s cute and flattering. It can be annoying. It’s annoying at 6 a.m. when it starts, quickly yanking me awake (doesn’t a child’s call of “Mom?” do that instantaneously to every mother?). It borders on maddening when Lucy takes up the call. Then it’s Marco Polo “Mam?” from two ends of our upstairs, feeding off each other.
There is something magical not only from a mother hen perspective (do you see my preening feathers?), but also from a biological perspective to watch a human learn to walk. It is pure, raw evolution in the making. I am so humbled to have seen this twice in my life, and it is breathtaking each time.
I love the look of pure glee on Alice’s face. She is determined and stubborn and proud. It amazes me, at just 10.5-months-old, that she can feel and so clearly articulate such emotions without saying a word.
I’m very behind on Alice’s 8-month post, which will come next week, but I have to share all her newest tricks. They’ve all started in the past two weeks!
wave bye-bye and good night
sitting up unassisted
go from sitting to her belly, and belly to sitting
wobbly crawling on her knees
clapping! You say, “yayyyy!” and her chubby hands start slapping together with a grin
I’ve always wanted to take one, but never knew of one close enough, or with good timing. This one will criss-cross the beautiful trails up here, and include some yoga (not my fave, but maybe outdoors with baby will be better?) and pilates (dying to try). It also starts at 11 a.m. — perfect for us Moms with babies that still nap in the morning.
I can’t think of a better way to enjoy my hometown and the sunshine, expose Alice to nature, and get expedite the shedding of this baby weight all at once. And the class is super cheap: Just $55 for eight weeks, or less than $7/class.
My friend Rachael from high school (hi Rach!) is joining me with her son.
I’m going to write about our adventures, take some photos and document any weight loss.
A similar class is running in Ajax starting July 8, and there’s still room in both locations to register. Visit www.balancedlifeyoga.ca (then select: buy passes/pre-registered classes/8-week stroller fit) for more details.
Yesterday afternoon went in to get Alice up from her nap, and found her rocking on all fours.
(As soon as I turned the light on, she immediately flopped on her belly and smiled mischievously at me. Pretending I didn’t just bust her. Do you see the mischievous glint in that eye?)
May I remind you that she is not even seven months old. And you may recall that Lucy was11 months old before she crawled.
I found out yesterday that my friend Jodi is expecting her first baby in late November.
I met Jodes in journalism school at Ryerson, and she was always adament that she did not want kids (were any of you this way?). I always hoped the sentiment would change as she got older and her clock started clanging…so was just floored when her email arrived yesterday.
Hooray, Jodi! I’m so damn excited.
Colleen, a frequent commenter here and the sweetest girl, is due with her second (a brother for Brady!) in September. And my long-distance Internet girlfriend, Kathi, is due in July with her second — a sister for brother Jacob.
(Say hi, you three.)
Oh, and Lauren just had a darling little boy named Benjamin — a wee brother for Owen.
Lucy spent a lot of time at the cottage like this:
Not just standing on the bench exclaiming, “Look, Mommy, grass! Look, Daddy, water! Look, Spence-ah, sand!” but wearing big girl underwear (with no pants, of course).
Operation Get The Child Potty Trained Before the Next One Arrives has begun.
Monday-Wednesday, Lucy is at Julia’s (our home daycare provider) from 8-4:30-ish
Thursday, Lucy is at my Mom and Dad’s
Friday she is home with me (and, currently, Eric)
By the time mid-morning Thursday comes — especially since I’ve been out Wednesday night with the girls and only see Lucy for a few hours — I’m really missing my daughter. I’m aching for her to arrive home from her Nana’s, and for Friday morning to come so we can start our day.
Except Thursday nights are often…difficult. Lucy is almost always riled up, high on grandparent love and attention and treats, and also excited to be reunited with us. So she usually comes back to Chez McDougall-Foster blazing around like she’s got a fire cracker up her arse, running and yelling and squealing and laughing and not listening.
I’ve dubbed this time Thursday Night Toddler Terror.
Did I mention this is almost always around 7-ish? The time that we’re normally getting her ready for bed? Hahahaaaaa, *sob*
I don’t for a milisecond blame my parents, nor would I ever want to change the Thursday arrangement. All three of them adore their day together, look forward to it all week, and are quite literally squirming in anticipation by Wednesday evening. (Me, too, ’cause Thursday is my not-working-at-the-paying-job day where I work on the site, get caught up on email, do housewifey things and garden and shop and sometimes meet friends for lunch.)
Plus, it’s Grandparent Right #1 to be able to hype up a child, then leave. After the trials and tribulations of raising your own children and setting them free on the planet to explore and grow and love and breed, damn right you should get to spoil your grandchildren and not have to suffer any of the resulting meltdowns (see TNTT, above).
Do you hear the snorts and cackling? Those are our parents, being smug.
So Thursday comes, and I’m so excited to see my Goose, and we manically laugh and giggle and kiss and nuzzle, and then after 10 minutes of her rampage through the house, I count down the seconds and nighttime tasks until I can literally throw her in her crib and collapse on the couch, gasping for air.
And then Friday morning comes and she is sane once more, divulged of the grandparent-induced high, and we have a fabulous day.
From the time Lucy was three months old, she’s been out in the garden with me.
We’d strap her in her bouncy seat, and stuffabandon place her gently under a tree or in the shade, and chat to her as I dug and planted and weeded and Eric did man-chores such as mowing, edging and mulching.
The early influence — combined with similar experiences in my parents’ beautiful gardens — means Lucy now loves dirt and flowers and stomping around in her rubber boots. Any time we read a book that features any sort of growing, she says, “Cee-Cee help Mama in the garden!”
I recently spent a morning filling our planters at the front of the house, and Lucy was practically exploding with excitement to help. Wearing a pair of my garden gloves, she carried plants, dumped soil and poured water, and was quite proud of herself when we nestled them on the porch.
I hope she continues to love gardening as she gets older, that it’s not just a passing adoration because her mummy likes doing it. With that in mind, I’m enjoying every second we dig around in the dirt together.
Sleeper with shoes on top. She’s a fashionista.
I KNOW! CUTE, EH? TOO BAD I’M PERMANENTLY DEAF NOW!
