THE BRAVEST BIG SISTER
My daughter, Nuala, watched as I painted her tiny fingernails with fuchsia-pink polish. When I’d finished, she held her podgy hands up to mine. ‘Matching, Mummy,’ she said as I kissed the top of her head, her bouncy curls tickling my nose.
It was August 2017 and Nuala was 18 months old. My husband, Danny, then 26, and I called her our little love bug because she’d arrived on Valentine’s Day 2016. Now a lively toddler, she wanted to be just like me, and that meant matching manicures before nursery.
Around this time, though, we noticed something unusual - Nuala had started tiptoeing rather than walking with
