Showing With the Kiddo...

The Kiddo and the Po-Po

There's something extra....um, searching for a word here....special about riding with one's child.  It's wonderful and insane and tragi-comic all rolled up into one.  It's even more special when you share the whole horse showing experience with them.

The other weekend my daughter and I had a horse show.   She's 9, and I'm trying to get her to take care of things on her own a bit more, so the night before the show I told her to get out her show bag and make sure she had all her stuff together and ready for the next morning.  I then gave her a check-list so she knew what "all her stuff" entailed.  When I checked on her a little while later she told me she'd gotten everything in order and had organized it on her bed.  A quick peek assured me that yup, looked like we were good to go.  Off  kiddo went to bed, dreaming of successful rounds and blue ribbons. 

Didja catch it?  Mistake number one?  In case you missed it, the mistake was the "quick peek" part.  You'll see why in a moment.

The crack of dawn came earlier than usual for Mom.  Not so for the child.  She was up earlier than the neighbor's chickens, banging around in her room as she dressed for the day.  The kid is incapable of silence in any form.  Silver lining here is that I did not need my alarm clock.  I was awake, and husband was not awakened and thus irritated by alarm clock going off at ungodly hour.  WINNING!!!

All seemed to be going according to plan.  Kid was busy shoveling in breakfast while I loaded truck and waited for the coffee machine to heat up.  Just as I was taking that first life affirming sip, she oh-so-casually informs me that I need to fix her jodphurs.  The black strap at the bottom had broken.  Apparently at the last show.  Which.was.weeks.ago.

HUH??  FYI -- I'm dumb as a box of rocks until the first jolt of caffeine hits me.  I think I just swiveled my head and looked at her, slack jawed, because she repeated herself.  Veeeeerrrrrry slowly.  By this time her words are sinking in.  This happened a month ago??  Why am I finding out now, when we need to leave in 5 minutes and the show is 45 minutes away??!!??  My pulse, like the pitch of my voice, was escalating.  Quickly I grabbed my sewing kit and triaged that puppy back together and off we went, only 10 minutes behind schedule.  Only poked myself with the needle once.  Only cussed the one time, too.

Done for the Day. Tired Po-Po.

The jodphur incident left me with no time to fix my second cup of coffee.  I blame my lack of patience with her newly stained jodphurs on the lack of caffeine.  She got them dirty within 5 seconds of arriving at the show grounds.  Seriously, how on earth could sitting on the muddy ground seem to be a good idea??  Even her 7 year old barn buddy knew that the rule is you have to stay clean until you show.  What would George Morris say?!?

The kid was unconcerned.  The stain was on her tush, and to her way of thinking no one would see it.  "Duh," says the7 year old sidekick, "What about when you two-point????"   Thankfully a towel and some water helped the situation somewhat, although I swear you can see the stain in some of the pictures. The footing was muddy, so I'm hoping  the judge thought it was just splash back.

Heading Off to the Ring....

The rest of the morning progressed without a hitch.  The kiddo rode well, got some nice ribbons, but more importantly, was gracious and good to her pony even when she did not place as high as she'd wanted to.  She rewarded herself with a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich (gotta love show food when you are young and have a nuclear metabolism) and hung out with her pal and her pony while I showed.  She says she meant to come and watch my classes, but was having so much fun that she knew I would not want her to stop what she was doing. 

Think she played me a bit on that one??  Heck yeah, she did.  I'm fine with it.  I missed a couple of distances and really don't need to hear about it from her!