Frida says (21 months) 

Twenty-one months today. I feel like we are speeding towards two!

She is talking more and more like a child and less like a toddler now, with longer and more complex sentences and confidence to use more challenging words in context like pandemonium and magnificent. We cling on to her sweet mispronounciations, aware that they will be gone all too soon.

Frida is still very, very interested by the idea of people being or feeling ill, and what they might need to feel better. She often plays that her baby or her animals are ill (necessitating “medicine calpol” or “medicine tuna” or “medicine hay”).  We have been reading Frida a book about Frida Kahlo, in which FK spends a lot of time in bed ill due to her accident and illnesses, and Frida has taken to lying down in bed or on a rug and telling us “Frida is lying in bed ill like Frida Kahlo. 

Today Frida gleefully told me: “Frida has a headache or something”. 

Sometimes Frida’s accounts are not always wholly truthful: “Frida’s teeth hurt. Albus (our kitten) scratched Frida’s tooth. Squirrel scratched it!”

Frida likes to be very clear about what food our cat can and cannot eat. On asking her why he can’t eat something she replied: “It hurts his tummy and his whiskers and his paws and his eyes and his back”. 

I love listening to her quietly narrating her life: “Cleaning your finger with your towel”. Here she meant “my finger” and “my towel” – she is still getting me and you mixed up a bit. 

Sitting at breakfast carefully putting blueberries into her glass of smoothie: “Blueberry say ‘I want to go to the smoothie’. Frida popping them in.”

Also at breakfast, eating raspberries: “Raspberries sweet, Frida is sweet. Alpacas are sweet.”

When being read the Snowman book by her daddy, Frida realised with dawning surprise that the little boy was going outside into the garden without his parents. She immediately jumped up: “Frida go outside! Daddy not come outside, daddy stay here!”

Sometimes I just wonder what goes on in her mind: “Frida has a yellow owl. Daddy has a dark blue one. Mummy has brown one. Albie has dark green.”

Once she told me that “mummy is ripe to eat!” 

I was drinking warm herbal tea abs she asked me for some. She took a sip, looked at me very seriously, and asked me: “Is it decaf?” Hilarious. 

She has a habit at the moment of screwing up her eyes tightly shut, fake-whimpering, and exclaiming: “Is it night time? I can’t see the people any more! I can’t see a thing!” 

For reasons unknown she has started merrily proclaiming: “Capital, capital!” like a Victorian gentleman. 

She was reading Skimbleshanks with my husband, and they were discussing the word confiscate. She thought about it then said: “Frida wants to confiscate daddy”. 
We are at the stage where Frida is starting to ask allllll the questions. “What’s mummy doing? What’s daddy eating? Who’s mummy talking to? What’s the little girl’s name called? What’s mummy heating up in the microwave? What’s daddy got?” and on and on and on. Very little gets past her. 

We are deep in imaginative play territory now. After discovering Meg and Mog books (not a series I am particularly fond of, and I will admit not very Montessori-friendly, but she adores them so we read them) Frida has decided that: “Mummy is Meg, Frida is Mog, Daddy is Owl, Albie is Diplodocus” (a minor “character” in the book Meg’s Eggs). It’s been well over a week and this shows no sign of getting old for her – we are often reminded to get back into character!

Talking of imaginative play, as well as making her own stories Frida wants more and more to act out the stories she reads about in her books. I am often told to catch fish or be in a boat or pull up vegetables.

Frida loves looking at the back page of her books as often there are pictures of others in the series. She was looking at the back of her Elmer book, where there were three pictured, one of which she already had, and said: “Frida has one Elmer book. Two presents!” We were amazed (and also wondered if we are too quick to buy her books…) 

Phew! If you are interested you can read my 20 month and 19 month updates here: 

• Frida says (20 months)
• Frida says (19 months) 

I love recording what she says, as I’m all too aware that otherwise I will forget. But what do you think? Should I keep sharing these posts here? Are they boring? Or do you enjoy getting a little glimpse into a toddler’s mind?