This is what’s called a toddler’s fracture, the PA confirms as we review Saturday’s urgent care x-rays at our local children’s hospital Monday morning. A break so common that it warrants a nickname they say. Of all the things my 3-year-old has jumped off from, it’s hard to believe that the crack wrapped around her tibia came from a 2 ft ramp. Life has been many things since becoming a parent, but boring has long exited my vocabulary.
What comes after is a lesson I’ve learned in various shapes, sizes, and seasons, but having a front row seat to a tiny person learning the same is a whole new sermon: it’s a great, brave thing to fight for joy and it often comes in the smallest of everyday choices. Choosing to cheer her friends on in a game of tag from the sidelines when she can’t join in, choosing whatever independence she can muster by scooting with her arms from one room to the next, choosing to experience a new city having to stay strapped to her stroller. Joyful courage.
So as we push this brave girl around for the next couple of weeks, here’s to the string of small choices we make everyday weaving itself into something beautiful.
