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.

Behold my flock of bleating sheep-children.

Mum?

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

Tomorrow Alice and I start a stroller fit class.

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.