Yesterday was a hard day. I got the girls to gym and managed to wrap my foot around the chair I was sitting on, thereby jarring my neck as I stood up and lost my balance.

The right hand side of my neck has been beset by injury in recent weeks. Trips, falls, strains, even managing to hit myself in the face with Gabby in a swing at the park. One painful thing after another.

My physiotherapist has reasssured me she’s confident it’s just muscle strain and tension and nothing nefarious, but she did point out it’s a hard area to let heal because it’s impossible not to keep using it.

So I was feeling pretty vulnerable and sore and miserable. I cried. I snapped at my children, which as any parent knows, makes you feel rubbish all on its own. Because we love our tiny people more than anything.

Gabby climbed into my lap and let me hold her and cry my pained tears into her hair as I mumbled my apologies about shouting and scaring her. She soothes me, telling me it’s OK.

I make it home, but honestly, my mood doesn’t improve, so neither does my interaction with my girls. Gabby refuses to sit at the table and eat her dinner. Kev & I are exasperated. She gets down and sits on the sofa, burying her head into the cushions and crying.

Squidge goes over to her. “Do you need a hug?”

“Yeah,” comes the sad mumble, as my youngest wriggles into the comfort of her big sister’s arms. She’s always peaceful there, because Squidge is her favourite person in the world. I love that.

“Our parents can make us feel sad sometimes can’t they?” Squidge says soothingly.

Guilt stabs at me when I hear my little girl speak such a truth, but I am proud that she can name such a truth all on her own.

But she’s not done.

“But they will always let us know why.”

My heart soars. This lovely little girl has noticed our parenting wins. Because we do, Kev & I. We’re parents. We impose rules our girls may not like, such as “You will try your food. You don’t have to like it, but you will try” or “No singing at the dinner table.” We lose our temper sometimes, we shout sometimes. But we always explain what feelings of ours have led to the shouting.

I smile proudly to myself. Because my little girl is secure in that knowledge. And she is going is help us make her little sister the same. We’re doing a good thing.