The one where my non-toddling toddler toddles

This time last week our house was not such a happy place.

I’d been told my nearly 22 month old daughter had an “issue” with the joints from her hips downwards and she was, to put it simply, too flexible to walk.

We sat there, our family of three, on hard plastic chairs next to a picture of everyone’s favourite donkey Eeyore, and tried to decipher the medical jargon tumbling into our confused brains.

Your. Child. Has. A. Problem.

Your. Child. Needs. Treatment.

We were in shock. We’d just had to pin our screaming, terrified child down to be X-rayed. We’d just had to explain to her that the light from the machine wouldn’t burn her, desperate to console her sobs of “HOT HOT HOT!”

And now this.

But, as the strip lighting in that sanitised room flickered, we began to feel elated. She didn’t need an operation. There was no major issue with her hips. A pair of special shoes and some Physio and she’d be fine.

Then we booked the Physio assessment and we slumped again.

Three months. Three more months of tantrums and tears at not walking. Three more months of watching my formerly confident, outgoing child withdraw into herself, as she becomes aware that she’s not like the other kids. She can’t jump into the swimming pool. She can’t dance along to the music. She can’t walk.

So, when this happened earlier today, I was (perhaps understandably) in tears…