The other day, I got a morning to hang out with Gabby Gabster, so I took her to Costa. We sampled the Christmas hot chocolates; Ferrero Rocher for her, Terry’s Chocolate Orange for me. Inevitably, with my thimble for a bladder, I need a wee before we leave. She points me towards the accessible toilet because I’m using the walker today in case we pick up any shopping along the way.

“You’re not using a wheelchair, Mummy, but you can use this toilet because you are disabled.”

“Yes, I don’t really like that symbol.” I tell her.

She doesn’t ask why. My six year old says:

“Not everyone who is disabled uses one, do they? You have your walker Mummy, because you are disabled.”

So my little girl already understands why the International Symbol of Access (in use since 1969) cannot represent her mum. What’s the rest of the world’s excuse?

“I use my walker because it helps me do everything I want to do. I was not like that when I was little. I had a walker and sticks I was meant to use, but I didn’t. I’d leave them.”

Gabby laughed. “Why?”

“Because it made people look at me like I wasn’t normal and I just wanted to pretend I was like everyone else.” I pull myself up then, suddenly realising something. “I don’t like that word. I try really hard not to use it with you and Immy because normal is different for everone isn’t it? My body works different to yours but it’s still normal for me – it just isn’t like everybody else’s. When I was little, people used the word “normal” to try and say I needed fixing to be like everyone else. They made me feel…”

I don’t know what the rest of that sentence is. I honestly don’t.

Gabby does.

“Mummy,” she says, with no prompting from me. “They made you feel odd. They made you feel like you weren’t right.”

I feel like a brick has been dropped on my head. How does she just know what I didn’t?

“Gabby, that’s it. That’s exactly it. God, you’re a clever girl. Not even I knew what I wanted to say, but you did.”

I feel a surge of pride. I am raising my little daughter to see. I know that when she looks at that symbol, she doesn’t see me. She has no interest in making me feel odd or othered, as the medical model has done since childhood, as society does, sometimes inadvertently, with its expectations and judgements against disabled people.

Because to my clever, empathetic, knowing girl, I’m just Mummy.