Couldn't help thinking of that movie Children of the Corn...
Hello again. I thought I'd give an update on the rest of our away show adventures at the Lion Country Horse Show.
On the second day of showing Noah was slated to do a derby class, which he'd never done before. Our trainer knew we were trying to make the most of our show experience, so after Noah did well on the first day she asked if we wanted to give the derby on the following day a try. What the heck, we figured. Pfffffftttt. Had I known what it cost to enter the class, I would have given it a pass. This is where our lack of show experience came in -- I had no idea the class fee for a derby was waaaaaayyyyyy more than for a normal hunter division. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Because this was his first attempt, we had no expectations whatsoever, which translated to absolutely no nerves. We got to the show early and took James out for a good graze, then a nice long hack around the grounds and some neighboring fields. When it got close to class time they did a relaxed warm up and then headed off to the in-gate to memorize their courses. As it was the Fourth of July and Crazy Hat Day, the girls from our barn had decorated each other's and Noah's helmets, so as he headed up to the ring Noah looked like a bedazzled General Patton. (I was really surprised he let the girls do that because he's kind of a keep-it-under-the-radar kind of dude, but I could tell he felt very happy to be included.)
The new Captain America model riding helmet...
Noah and James went in to the ring and proceeded to lay down the best round I've ever seen them do. (I'm actually lucky I saw it. I had every intention of taking pictures but then realized I couldn't see a damn thing so ditched the camera and just took memory pictures with my eyes.) Their rhythm was relaxed, their distances spot on, and they nailed all the high options to score some bonus points. Noah was light and following with his hands (something he's been working on) and this translated into a very happy, relaxed James. Noah left the ring absolutely beaming and patting James profusely. His smile got even bigger when their score was announced as an 82, putting them in second place.
We had a moment or two of anxiety over the handy round, as it required them to do a trot fence, which they'd not practiced that much at home. Their handy round was not quite as smooth as the previous round (dang trot jump!) but they still scored well enough to remain in second. Holy crap!! The kid had just completed his first derby (admittedly a baby one - not the height of the national or international derbies) and had gotten a second place! He actually got to be in a victory lap, which was way cool. Needless to say there was much rejoicing, and James was given many treats and pats, another long graze and an extra long massage from Mom. What made the day extra special is that our barn-mate Carly and her wonder-mare Kalifornia Dreamin' won the National Derby later that afternoon - it was an abundance of awesomeness!
So proud of my boys!!
Carly, her mom Kathy, and Kalifornia Dreamin'
The rest of our week was wonderful. Noah went to the lake with the rest of the kids, we spent a night making s'mores around the hotel's fire pit. We did dinner with our barn family almost every night. Noah did a couple classes Saturday and Sunday, and he did well. He didn't have another round like he did in the derby, but there was a good mix of good moments and teaching moments. Most importantly, he was spending a ton of bonding time with his horse, and learning all kinds of things about grooming and horse management.
Mom! Please! Put the camera away.
S'mores! (The dog in the pic is actually named S'mores!)
Inspecting the course
I was loving life too. You know what it's like when you spend most of your day working and running around with the kids and then running to spend what precious free time you can steal with your horse. It was so wonderful to have my whole entire day be about spending time with our horse, and with people who felt the same way as we do about horses. It's kinda like wandering around lost and then finally finding your tribe. OK, maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but you know what I mean.
So there you have it. Noah's first big away show. We had a blast, a lot of laughs, and a ton of mother/son bonding time. Who knows, it may be another 3 years before we can do something like this again. Heck, we may never get to do another away show again, so I'm glad that both the kids and I have had the experience once. I'm most proud of the fact that we spent each moment of the experience taking it in and enjoying every moment of it, and thanking James profusely for his part in making it happen.
So the umbrella isn't an issue, but the vacuum is. Go figure.
My kids' OTTB James is the equine version of the Peanuts character "Pig-Pen." He lives for a good roll that will grind and cake mud into every nook and cranny he possesses. James loooooooves looking like a four-legged Swamp Thing; although his riders are less enthusiastic about his hygienic practices.
It's rained for the past couple of days, which means James has been in high heaven, no doubt finding every patch of dirt in his field. My son and I knew what we were going to find when we got to the barn, and James didn't disappoint. He was covered stem to stern, his forelock sticking up like a Mohawk and the only things not covered in dried mud were the eyes that were gazing gleefully out at us. James looked like a kid who'd gotten into the cookie jar and ate every last one, clearly very pleased with himself.
Sadly for James, his pleasure was not to last long. Noah curried, curried some more, and yet even more. Currying and a couple passes with the stiff brush didn't do much against the muck - if you tapped his croup a mushroom cloud of dust came up - so it was decided it was time to break out the vacuum. Have I ever mentioned that James does not like the vacuum? Nope, not even a little bit. To James, the vacuum is the source of all evil in this world.
Noah dragged the vacuum over to James, who had pulled his head back and was eyeing Noah with obvious misgivings. "You brought this on yourself," Noah told his horse. He then walked up to James and held the vacuum cleaner head under his nose, saying "You know what this is. You know how this works. I turn it on and it makes a WHHHOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHH noise and I put it on and it sucks all the dirt out." James sniffed the end of the vacuum, his eyes going from machine to boy and back again. Noah then rubbed the head along James' neck and shoulders, talking to him the whole time.
He cleans up quite nicely!
Sugar and I watched this whole exchange with great interest and many giggles from our vantage point across the aisle. Sug loves the vacuum, and clearly had no idea why James was apprehensive. As we watched, Noah turned the vacuum on and poor James' eyes damn near goggled out of his head! He startled, braced his legs out like he was Bambi on the ice, snorted, and whipped his head over to look at me as if to say, "I want to speak with Management! I'd like to file a formal protest!" He then swiveled his head to give Noah the hairy eyeball and snorted emphatically.
Noah kept talking to James, praising his bravery (???) and making glacially slow, sweeping movements with the vacuum. This eventually relaxed James, and he reduced his Terror Alert Status from High to Guarded, his ears tracking back and forth in case anybody decided to try any more funny business.
When Noah finished, James let out a HUUUUUUGE sigh and hung his head on the cross-ties, his demeanor indicating he felt highly put-upon by the indignities of being subjected to such a traumatic experience. Noah went over and grabbed a carrot for James, who brightened and scarfed it down, immediately forgetting his encounter with the Evil SuckMonster.
It's disgustingly early and I'm woefully under-caffeinated, but I'll try to get a few thoughts down since, well, there's not much else to do on this plane except mouth breath and hope for this ride to be over. On one hand it can be a good thing to be located in the back next to the lavatory, especially if you're a middle aged mother of two (know what I mean, ladies?). On the other hand, the atmosphere can be a touch, ummm, gag-worthy.
Anywhooo, so here are some of the other ways we managed to make our non-horsey vacation a bit more, for lack of a better word, horsey:
1) My son and I were bike riding and he kept trying to ride without the use of his hands, to no avail. He kept drifting precariously to the right. I made the connection that Sugar and James drift right when he rides them, and -LIGHTBULB!- came to the conclusion it might be because he is weighting his right seat bone too much. I asked him to tighten up his core a bit and concentrate on putting a little more weight into his left seat bone, and lo and behold, after a few aborted attempts he was able to ride no-handed in a straight line.
Noah and Sophie riding "Julien" and "James the 2nd"
2) Sophie has declared that my lucky number is 4. This pronouncement is based on the fact that my average per hole mini-golf score is 4, which she says is obviously because horses have 4 legs. You get the connection, right? Clear as mud.
3) On our last day we managed to drag my husband to an actual barn. One of our previous trainers had moved to a lovely facility about 30 minutes from where we were staying, so on our way out of town we stopped by to say hi and see her new digs. As the kids and I walked into the barn we all inhaled deep breaths of that wonderful horse smell, and both turned to me and voiced what I was thinking, "Boy, it sure smells good in here, and boy, do we miss our horses." So we loved on every horse who was amenable to it, offering scratches and nose kisses and peppermints and just breathing in the magic that is horse.
Sophie the Girl meets Sophie the Pony
4) Our flight home was at an ungodly early hour, so we elected to spend the night before near the Savannah airport. It seemed like a great opportunity to see a bit of this historic and lovely city, and we took one of the walking tours of the haunted houses of old Savannah. Savannah is a beautiful city, clean, with wide streets and moss-draped live oak trees. Horse drawn carriage tours are a big tourist draw, and of course we needed to walk up and smuggle peppermints to as many of the cart horses as we could. I'm not a city lover, but I could probably live in Savannah, as at least the historic center smells more of horse (and equine by-products) than of car exhaust, sidewalk food vendor grease, and too many people in close quarters.
5) Plane flights are a great place to read. On our flight home my husband found himself with nothing to read and no in-flight movie, so he leaned over to see what might be of interest in my stack of magazines. "Practical Horseman, Practical Horseman, and Chronicle of the Horse," he intoned with dejection. "I have the US Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship in my bag, if you'd rather that," I mentioned helpfully. He elected to nap rather than expand his body of equine knowledge. Silly man.
So there you have it. How a horsey family manages to take a week away from the horses and infuse it with at least a tiny taste of things equine.
Would be better utilized as a jump field or pasture, right?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You can leave the ponies, but the ponies never leave you. Case in point: We took a family vacation to South Carolina this week, the first real "away' vacation we've taken in a while. We were looking forward to some time away from our busy schedules, quality time together as a family, and truth be told, my husband was probably eagerly anticipation a week away from anything horse related.
He rolled his eyes when we told him how we hugged the horses goodbye and told them we'd miss them and not to forget us for the week. James, angel baby that he is, raised his head and pretended to look like he cared that we were leaving. Sug never even looked up from her hay. The poor man started to get a sense that the horses were not going to be completely left behind when we were at the airport during a changeover: We were getting on to one of those automated walkways and my son misjudged his approach, at which point he turned to me and ruefully said, "I chipped the distance on that one."
Here are some of the other ways we knew the horses had not left our minds:
1) You go on a bike ride with your son and when he passes people on the bike path he yells "inside" to them to let them know what side he is passing them on. To his way of thinking, the road was the outside and the golf course was the inside. made perfect sense to us, but I told him we were probably the only equestrians on vacation so we'd be better off sticking to "left" and "right."
2) You realize that bikes, at least the big old cruisers, do NOT listen to half halts. They respond to backward pressure on the pedals. I was pointing out an alligator sunning himself in a lagoon to my son when I experienced this bit of learning, and damn near skidded into the lagoon before I figured out what I was doing wrong.
3) You call your bike your "steed" and name it. My husband's eyes darn near rolled back in his head when Sophie announced her bike was a stallion named "Julien" (pronounced Hool-eee- en) and Noah and I confessed to naming ours as well.
4) You find yourself creating a horse-less horse show with your bike. While waiting for everyone to get organized to bike home after we'd gone out to breakfast, I noticed Sophie riding her bike in circles around the parking lot, muttering to herself. After listening more carefully, I could tell she was giving herself the same instructions she'd get in an under saddle class. Of course I had to video that bit of cuteness!
5) While walking on the beach Noah commented how much fun it would be to bring Sugar and James out there, and what a good work-out it would be for our tubby mare. As we watched Soph run around a jump the tide pools, he turned to me and said, "Look, she's practicing the water jumps." Some of the tide pools were too large for her to jump over, and she called over to us, "Look, I'm an event horse, and I'm going through the water hazard" She'd make a very brave event horse.
6) You take so many bike rides that your muscles are screaming at you. Normal people would go to the local Piggly Wiggly and look for Ben Gay. We Googled the nearest tack shop for some Sore No More.
We're only halfway through our vacation, so I'm pretty sure we're going to have a few more of these moments before we head home.
It's a gorgeous Saturday. Sunny, mid 70s, with a bit of a breeze. Perfect day for riding.
Except I'm not. The kids have a horse show tomorrow and Noah is riding Sug in itty bitty jumpers. He told me he would feel more comfortable about giving the mare the ride she deserves if he could work on things in one more lesson before the show.
Bless his heart, does the little booger know how to work me or what?
After riding we need to rush to bathe the beasties, clean tack and finish prepping because we had plans to meet friends for dinner. Of course we were running late, so things were, ummm, in a word- hurried.
Here's the summary:
Arrive home with 45 minutes to spare before needing to leave. The Boy proceeds to make the fixings for his famous chocolate chip cake while I set to work polishing his boots.
Daughter starts polishing her paddock boots. Realizes she forgot to tell Mom she'd finished the brown polish last show. Mom does several deep breathing exercises to avoid hysterics and sends Dad to store in search of more brown show polish. Crisis averted.
Boots are polished. No time to shower, so splash and lather arms and face to get rid of worst of the barn sludge. Poof myself with powder bomb of anti Monkey Butt powder and a spritz of perfume to get rid of eau de equine.
Hair is mix of hat head and cowlick courtesy of horse slobber, vaguely reminiscent of the spooge hair gel scene in Something About Mary. Apply splash of water and hair goop to create semblance of order.
Pull on summer dress uniform of plaid skort and polo. Realize have not shaved legs and look like feral yak. Attempted to dry shave, which resulted in removal of square inch of shin and much cussing. Slapped on bandaid with hopes bleeding would stop by the time we got to our destination.
Get to friend's house. Act like mature adult and monitor alcoholic beverage consumption, as horseshows and hangovers don't go well together. Get home feeling quite virtuous. Hit the rack only to realize I had not actually baked the cake. Crap. Adjusted alarm on iPhone to reflect earlier wake-up call.
Alarm adjustment turns out to be unnecessary as barn buddy and fellow horse show attendee elects to return my text from previous night at 5am. Now wide awake and have plenty of time to bake cake.
Commence warming up espresso machine for mandatory infusion of caffeine. Frothing of milk too noisy and too much effort, so elect to go with quick shot of whipped cream on top of espresso.
Kids are dressed, cake is ready, so with a quick prayer to weather and horse show gods, off we go!
I'm an only child. This is pertinent information as it will help you better understand my occassional need for alone time, which may or may not be more highly developed than some. I also love my kids to distraction. I do. I love them like crazy, understanding that at the same time they often drive me batcrap crazy.
I think that's so because as an only child, I spent a great deal of my formative years on my own, engaged in silent, solitary, peaceful (mostly) activities. Now all my time is spent in a frenzy of chaos, and while I would not change my life, sometimes I long for a little "alone time" and I don't think I am a bad parent or person because I do (or, at least I don't think that way most of the time). You following me?
Tuesday night it was my son's turn to come to the barn with me. It was a more than typically rushed evening, as we had to be home in time for me to run out to my daughter's orthodontist appointment. Picture the Boy and me driving down a busy NJ highway, me with my eyebrows drawn together as I mentally work through some work issues. It occurs to me that there is a sad lack of parent-child interaction, so I weakly offer a "Whatcha thinkin' about?"
Dammit. I know better. That particular question always leads to an aneurysm inducing answer. Yesterday's gem was, "I'm thinking about Mobius strips." WTF????? Go ahead, Google away. M-o-b-i-u-s strips. Lord knows I certainly had to, even after he tried to explain the term to me. I knew I'd heard of them, just couldn't pick one out of a lineup. Sigh.
Then we rode. I kept stopping what I was doing with Sug to offer help. I know, big mistake. I could almost hear Sugar thinking, "Shuddup fercripessakes and leave the kid be. You have your own issues to worry about." Then there was the rush to get cleaned up and get home. The watching-him-take-5-trips to the tack room when he could have saved time by bring everything at once. (Yeah, of course I had to point that out, for which sin I was treated to the dreaded Eye-roll of Annoyance).
Yesterday I got to go to the barn by myself. And have a lesson. By Myself. Could focus 100% on my ride. Groom and clean tack without distractions. No one to ask where the hoof stuff was, or where their girth/gloves/helmet/favorite saddle pad was. Nobody asked me if I had a drink or snack on me. (Yes, of course I do, honey. Actually, what you call my big butt is actual a mini-bar stocked with your favorite treats - let me pull a vitamin water out for you!)
It was absolute bliss.
Tonight it's Soph's turn to come to the barn as we have a lesson. I'm wondering which daughter will show up. Will it be the taciturn pre-teen who huffs and eye-rolls every time I say something? Or the Chatty Patty who needs to fill every silence with news of school going on, soccer gossip, or random noises? I already know I'll be clucking at her to finish grooming and tacking up, and then alternately begging her to hurry up and threatening to leave her there if she doesn't clean her tack faster.
Guess who was playing with Mom's phone when she should have been cleaning tack?
I think one solo barn day a month is fair. That's not asking too much, right?
One good thing about having a 40 minute commute to the barn is the quality time I get to spend with my kids. I'm racking my brain to find something else positive to say about the commute, but that's all I can come up with. Oh well, points for trying, I guess.
So today we left for the barn and our riding lessons despite the fact that 2-4" of snow was forecasted. No big deal, right? Naaaaahhh! We have 4-wheel drive. What's 2-4 measly inches? I mean, if it we'd been talking about feet, well, that would have been another story. THAT would have been impressive. Yeah, I know, not my brightest moment, hindsight being 20/20 and all.
Let's just say we got almost halfway to the barn and we'd already seen several accidents. The kids and I had a quick discussion and decided that although we really wanted to see the horses and ride, it was probably not worth dying over, so we turned around. By this point visibility had deteriorated and snow had accumulated on the road and things were getting a bit dicey. Not really bad, just bad enough that I was sitting bolt upright, gripping the wheel and squinting anxiously at the road before me. I needed to pay attention, and asked the kids to be quiet so I could concentrate on not going off the road.
You know the saying that says "Nature abhors a vacuum?" Well, Sophie feels the same way about silence, and she was hell-bent and determined to fill the void of our silent truck with sound. Didn't matter what kind of sound, she just needed to make noise. Did I mention that she has a cold? Yep, she does. Sophie discovered that some of the best sounds she could make were ones that took advantage of her, ummm, congested state.
Now just as I was about to lose my cool and drop the f-bomb (I know, bad Mommy!!!!), the snorts stopped. I smiled, reveling in the peaceful silence. Have I ever mentioned what a drama llama my daughter is? No? Let me give you an idea. The same child that will play an entire soccer game or rugby match one-legged with blood spurting out an artery will come shrieking into my room in the morning, convinced that the mark on her skin left by a crease in her sheet is a harbinger of some horrible wasting disease.
The silence in our car was soon cut by the noise of a violent thrashing, accompanied by other panicked sounds:
"Soph, what's happening?!" I was trying to pull over while Noah tried to assess the situation.
"Mom, I'm choking on snot! I can't breathe! I need a hospital!"
"Duh, Sophie, if you can talk, you can breathe," says the big brother, in a tone dripping with scorn.
"Oh, yeah, I guess you're right," says the girl spawn with an unrepentant giggle.
"Okay, troops," I said, "Stand down. Crisis averted."
Seems all of her antics had caused the uh, snot, to get caught in her throat for a moment. Luckily I kept my head through all the shenanigans and we stayed on the road, eventually arriving home safely. I gave Sophie some cold medicine, poured myself a medicinal glass of wine and sat down to watch the snow fall while the kids played outside. Yeah, this car-bonding with the kids is a great thing, I suppose.
Here's how the she-devil entertained herself after we got home from our aborted barn trip...
My daughter greeted me with this news the other morning as soon as I wandered into the kitchen. As I'd just left my bed and was woefully undercaffeinated her comment made absolutely no sense to me.
"Huh?" was my witty rejoinder. "What are you talking about?"
At least, that's what I think I said. Sophie says what she heard come out of my mouth was more like "Mwahnahschoogenfeld."
"Mom! Sapphire had her foooooooo-aaaaalllllll!"
At this point Sophie gave up, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to the basement family room where she has her Breyer horses set up in what I call Happy Valley Hillbilly Ranch. I say hillbilly as, since we refuse to buy another gi-normous Breyer barn, the child has gotten resourceful and created barns out of whatever is at hand. As of today's writing, most of the ranch's residents reside in old wine boxes. Not Sapphire, though. She resides in the Breyer barn. Rank has its privileges and all. But I digress.
The Great One's stall. With nameplate, of course.
There she was, in the north field, the Magnificent Mare herself and her brand new baby. I had no idea the mare was even expecting and had a tense moment as I contemplated lack of pre-natal care, however both mother and baby looked quite healthy. Sapphire was already cantering about her field -- concerned about getting her pre-baby figure back, perhaps?
"Did you let McLain know?" I asked. For some reason this was all my sleep-addled brain could come up with. You can't see in the picture, but Sophie's Sapphire is autographed by McLain. If you've been reading AWIP for a while, you'll know I blog for Horse Junkies United as well. I covered the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair for HJU and, during a embarrassing moment of weakness, ran across the schooling ring and pretty much tackled the poor man in hopes of getting him to sign my daughter's Breyer model of Sapphire. McLain, ever gracious as he is, signed the model for me and then told me to tell Sophie to "take good care of her."
McLain and me, taken seconds before he called security. Just kidding!!
McLain has no idea what he started. He's created a monster, really, as Sophie has taken his words as gospel. Sapphire is on a regular grooming and exercise schedule. All Sophie's horses have a set turn out schedule, however, Sapphire gets the best "field" and is out mostly at night since Sophie feels the bugs annoy her. Inevitably, once bedtime is announced I'm told, "I need to turn Sapphire out!" Now, I'm well aware this is a delay tactic of the highest order, but I indulge it because, well, it's Sapphire.
Sophie takes good care of Sara (Sapphire's barn name) in other respects as well. It's well known that Sara loves her Dunkin' Donuts. Sadly, we don't get to the double D's as often as the big mare would like, but I do bake often. Sara's learned to love chocolate chip cookies, espresso chip cookies, and dark chocolate Kahlua brownies. (Crap! Chocolate is no good for pregant women! What about preganant mares?) Sophie takes care to feed her only small amounts of these indulgences, though. (I know, as I vacuum up the crumbs.)
We decided to err on the side of caution and removed her brother's Lego Millenium Falcon and Sith Infiltrator out of the back of their field, as from what I understand foals are like children and thus highly accident prone. Neither of us know anything about caring for or raising foals, so Sophie has pulled out all of her horse books and is reading up on the subject. She says you always have to do right by your horse, but it's especially important when the horse in question belongs to one of the best riders in the world and he has specifically told you to take good care of her.
Olympic fever is alive and well at my house. My husband and I were swimmers in college, so we always watch as much as we can off the pool action. I will watch any Olympic sport, although of course I have been getting up at o' dark thirty the past two mornings to catch as much equestrian coverage as I can.
The other day the kids and I were joking about what Olympic sport I could possibly still have a shot to qualify for. God bless Hiroshi Hoketsu and Ian Millar; they give me hope that I'm not to old to dream about an competing in equestrian. I'd probably be better off if I stopped this jumping silliness and focused on dressage. If I use 71 (Hoketsu's age) as a benchmark, I've got roughly 30 years to practice.
Swimming is out. I'm not Dara Torres, who at age 43 attempted to qualify for the 2012 Games, which would have been her sixth Olympics. She missed her goal by nine-hundredths of a second (0.09). I was never more than adequate at the sport. If my team needed an extra body in a relay, they'd throw me in. Not really the base you want to try and build an Olympic bid on.
Long story short, I decided I might have a shot at pentathlon. I can swim, I can ride, I can shoot. I can also run. I just can't run well. I used to date a fencer. That gives me a head start on that, right??
The day started out like most of our summer Saturdays: Get up at the crack of crazy and harass the kids through breakfast so we can get out the door to whatever rugby tournament we're scheduled to be at.
Had to pack riding clothes so we could hit the barn afterwards. It's funny -- the kids play in anywhere from four to six games and yet I'm the one that's exhausted. Go figure.
So by the time we got to the barn I was toast. Just not feeling the mojo, ya know? Then Sophie came up and told me she'd forgotten her paddock boots and half chaps.
My mind blanked. My jaw may have dropped open. I could almost see the myriad different responses that were crashing through my head. Thankfully I was able to (in the words of the immortal Archie Bunker) stifle myself. We decided that we'd forgo a "real" ride, and just hop on the girls bareback and in our shorts, have some fun, and leave the serious stuff for tomorrow.
Sug and Cookie were totally on board with the idea. We walked and trotted around the grassy area between the indoor and outdoor rings and around the barn. Then we went into the outdoor ring and cantered around a bit. The girls clearly enjoyed the different form of exercise, and both tossed their heads and attempted a few baby bucks.
It certainly wasn't our normal routine, and we certainly weren't attired in regulation equestrian garb, but ya know what? Sometimes you just gotta get out of the rut!
Somehow I don't thing George Morris would approve of this!
One of the bestest things about Sug is that she takes such good care of us. She clearly views me as the Village Idiot, and sees her job as that of minimizing the damage I might inadvertently cause. She very obviously sees my children as her foals, and you can tell she is determined to co-parent them to the best of her ability. When we come into the barn, she will nicker at them in her low rumble until the come to her stall and say hello. When I take her out of her stall, she will stop by the kids and lick them, almost as if she is inspecting them and checking to see if I've kept them in good shape.
I was noodling about watching some of my saved videos and came across this old one. If you've been following AWIP for a while, you may have seen this before, so I offer my apologies for that. I just felt like posting it again, as it shows so well why we call Sug the Sainted Mare.
Enjoy, have a great weekend, and again, thanks for taking time out of your day to hang out with us!
Sometimes I wonder if this parenting thing is going to be the death of me. Really. You know those mothers that seem completely nonplussed despite the fact that they've got 8 pre-teens running through their yard and dinner to cook and a science fair project to help make? You know - the mothers who smile serenely and who seem to know the absolute right Dr. Phil/Oz/Spock thing to say when their child is sad or mad or glad or in the middle of a $hitstorm of angst and drama?
I'm not one of them.
The other night, Sophie was overtired from a sleepover the night before and seemed a bit bummed out. While she was organizing her stuff for the following day's horse show, I made a few attempts to find out what was going on. I used my sweetest, best, most understanding Dr. Phil voice each time. I swear to you I did. It didn't work. She was mute, until all of a sudden she wasn't, and then she was face down in tears on the bed, howling. Absolutely howling. The cats peeked in, took one look at the situation and got the heck out of Dodge.
More gentle probing (and by God, I was exhausted at this point) got the kid to spill the beans. The cause of the drama? Camp had been "boring", the afternoon snack was "bad", and we didn't get a chance to go to the pool because I "needed to go grocery shopping."
My brain snapped. I had a full-on WTF aneurysm. Gone were Doctors Phil, Oz, and Spock. In their place was the wrath of Mom, and it was a righteous and awesome wrath. To put it bluntly, Miss Thing got an earful, and I was about half a second away from pulling her out of the show. I don't have a problem doing that; I've done it before. However, a small part of my brain was saying, "She didn't really do anything wrong. She was tired, you pushed her to tell you what was wrong, and she did. You just didn't like her answer, or the drama that came with it." So, before I did anything irrevocable, I got my husband's opinion on the matter, and a very rational friend's thoughts as well. Ultimately, we decided to let her show, but to enforce consequences later by having her do extra housecleaning chores and sit through one of my long winded lectures on "Why what you did was unacceptable: Part XXIII."
She woke up the next morning as her normal self. She was helpful, respectful, and listened attentively to her trainer and to me. She said "thank you" whenever people complimented her on her riding or on her pony. She was considerate of her pony and praised Cookie with many pats after each round. There was no sign whatsoever of the sulky hell-child of the evening before. She even bear-hugged her Grandpa and thanked him for coming to watch her show.
Reserve Champion. Happy child. Tired Po-Po.
Wonderful! Happy child, happy Mom, happy pony (there were lots of treats and hugs). She almost had a relapse when we handed her the bucket of cleaning supplies, but took one look at me (I think I might have been drawing in a deep breath in preparation for another Shock and Awe campaign) and thought better of it.
She went off to clean. I went off to take a nap. This parenting thing is exhausting.
You know those days when you're already starting out exhausted and overwhelmed? Yeah, me too.
Had one of those recently. Didn't help that I'd just gotten back from a long business trip and got up at o' dark hundred the next morning to go to the barn, which was then followed by lacrosse practice and something else which I can't for the life of me remember.
So, we were on a schedule. Or, rather, I was. The kids were not. Despite several countdown style warnings of imminent departure no one was standing at the door ready, and when my daughter came down still wearing her pajamas after 20 minutes in her room doing God knows what, I lost the cheese off my cracker.
Seriously, it was not a Mother of the Year moment. More like a Mommie Dearest moment. The cats and the husband ran for cover. I saidyelled bellowed something along the lines of "You have @#!$% #@!&%!" and slammed off into the car to wait for the sheepish offspring. The drive down to the barn was quite, except for the radio and my deep breathing.
Here's another area where this whole mental coach thing comes in handy. This whole "forget outside distractions and focus solely on one's task" helped me focus on breathing. Then I could focus on driving. Which meant I was not choking my children or distracted by all the other crap that I was allowing to irritate me. Which was good.
When we got to the barn and the boy couldn't bridle the mare (he had her full cheek snaffle shank poking up her nostril) and the girl disappeared, leaving her half-tacked pony on the crossties, I focused on my immediate task, which was finding the daughter, breathing and not choking my children, and somehow getting them onto their respective mounts. I did not think of the house I needed to clean, or how I would get the boy fed before lacrosse practice. Just got the job done. Somehow. Without bloodshed or pharmaceutical or oenological assistance. (Who knew?)
I even managed to give the boy a longe line lesson on the Sainted Mare. It went well. And despite the fact that the daughter did her best to disappear again, I got the boy home in time to eat lunch and get to lacrosse.
Focus on the immediate task, huh? Drop all the other baggage? Seriously, who knew?
I had to update y'all after yesterday's post about the challenges of getting the kids ready for their riding lessons. As much as it can sometimes be stressful (and really, I do realize that some of the stress I bring on myself) I do love the time together our riding brings us.
This morning I got up at o'dark hundred (on a Sunday!!) to watch the FEI Rolex World Cup Show Jumping qualifier from Zurich. There I was, stretched out on the couch, laptop in lap, latte in hand, watching the best of the best jump GI-NORMOUS 1.60m obstacles and thinking "Why am I such a wuss that I go fetal at 3'?"
About 5 minutes into the competition the Boy wandered in and sat down next to me, and the Girl followed a few minutes after that. So here we all were, cuddled on the couch and staring at the laptop. I wish you could have heard the commentary from the peanut gallery.
"Oh! He's a MILE off that one!"
"Ugh! Too deep, too deep!"
"Let go of his face!"
"Outside leg, more outside leg!!
"Ride up!"
"Wait for it, wait for it."
"Good turn, sweet turn!"
"Oh, there's Ludger! When does Ludger go? Is that Chaman? I LOVE Chaman!" (Yep, we're BIG Ludger fans.)
Of course all of this was accompanied by hisses, groans, shouts, fist pumps and leg kicks (I have bruises - the Girl kicks like a mule and pays no attention to where she's kicking.)
I really feel so blessed, as I know the horses were the best part of my childhood, and I truly feel as though horses and the time we spend as a family with the horses will be the best part of my kid's childhood.
And at least I had a good start to the day, which will hopefully stand me in good stead as we have another riding lesson today. Am keeping fingers crossed that there will be less "cat herding" moments.
That being said, sometimes I really feel like beating my head against a wallpunting themselling them on eBay like I'm herding cats. You remember that commercial, right?
You know what I mean, right? When you try to get kids to go in the same direction at the same time, it's kinda like herding those cats.
Add time pressures into the mix, and you've got the kind of evening that has Mommy reaching for the wine. The kids had a lesson the other night, so right after work I zipped over to pick up Soph at after school care. That's an excercise in patience unto itself. Ms. Social Butterfly takes what feels like an eternity to gather her crap stuff and say goodbye to her legion of fans friends. Since we no longer had time to make a quick dinner, I swung by McDonalds to grab something for the road (wrong order yet again - FAIL!!!), jetted back home to grab the boy and let the girl get changed, and off we went through 45 minutes of rush hour New Jersey traffic.
Ms. SB has a herd of buddies at the barn, which means that she's easily distracted from her task of tacking up for her lesson. I try vainly to ride herd on her and keep her on task, while making sure they boy gets Sugar ready in a timely fashion. He's good on the time thing, just forgets some of the stuff you'd think would be basic by this point in his riding life. For example, which side the leather part of the girth goes on and which side the elastic should be on, whether or not she should have jumping boots on (yes, you'll be jumping) and how there should be some space between her withers and the saddle pad for comfort. Don't even get me started on how he puts on her bridle. I give him a pass on this -- she is pretty tall.
Meanwhile, the pony is still standing patiently on the cross ties, clad only in jumping boots and a saddle pad, and the girl child is nowhere to be seen. I check the tack room -nothing. The bathroom - nope. I go upstairs by the tack trunk, and as soon as I get to the top of the stairs I hear a rush of little footsteps and when I round the corner, Sophie is looking very busy in her tack trunk and her buddy is sitting innocently on top of hers. I separate the two, sending Soph downstairs and manufacturing an errand for the other, buying time so Sophie can finish tacking.
Huge sigh of relief -- both horses are finally tacked, their children gloved, helmeted, and with pony clubs (crops) in hand and the lesson can begin. I drag my exhausted self upstairs to the viewing room, and thankfully, my girlfriends (bless their hearts) have brought wine. Sing hallelujah -- there's light at the end of this tunnel. I nurse a Dixie cup of sauvignon blanc, munch on cheese, and watch the kids ride. As I am driving and can only have the one glass, I decide it is best for my stress level if I don't supervise the untacking/tack cleaning process. I do check to make sure the girls are correctly put away, with all straps and surcingles in order. Thankfully, they are. We turn out the barn lights and head home.
We get home, I send both kids off to bed, pour myself a GENEROUS glass of wine, and pass out on the couch before I can even finish drinking it. Yep, this parenting thing will take a LOT out of you.
Confession: I am an only child. Perhaps you've heard the rumors that sometimes only children have difficulty sharing? We are capable of learning but, yes, sharing can be a challenge. There's a famous story in my family about my grandparents, some M&Ms, and a childhood friend. Goes like this: Nana and Pop Pop came to visit and as they always did, they brought a bag of M&Ms.
I was playing with a girlfriend at the time, and after the hugs were over and the candy was in my sweaty little palms, I started stuffing my piehole with the M&Ms. Needless to say, I was not sharing with my girlfriend, and my grandparents chastised me for this. As the story goes, I turned to Vanna Kay, handed her ONE blue M&M, and announced, "I'm SHARING!"
Time, marriage and motherhood have improved my ability to share -- somewhat. Case in point, I share my mare with my son. And tonight I shared my "solo" barn time AND my mare with my son. To explain, normally Tuesday nights are "my" night at the barn (aka Mom Therapy) and the Hub and the Boy take Sophie to soccer. However, tonight the Boy wanted to come to the barn and ride. So off we went.
We had a nice chat on the way down. We practiced loon calls. We discussed the migratory pattern of loons and music from the 1980s (not that one has anything to do with the other). The chat continued while we groomed and fussed over Sugar. Noah hopped on her first and warmed her up, and when they began to trot I found myself striding around the arena offering pointers and sharing some insights from from a video I'd just seen on EquestrianCoach.com. My ideas seemed to help, the boy felt improvement in his balance, and I felt good for being able to help. Yay all around.
A Mare and Her Boy
After I rode her for a little bit we let her loose in the indoor to have a roll and play a bit. Noah and I ran around trying to get her to play tag with us (only possible if we ran while crinkling peppermint wrappers) and after she rolled he groomed her and told her about his day while I cleaned tack. We blanketed her, kissed her goodnight, made our rounds kissing everyone else goodnight, and headed home.
I started the evening looking forward to some alone time with my mare. I spent the evening thoroughly enjoying time with my son and our horse. I guess this sharing thing ain't all that bad. Who knew?
Just in case you were wondering, I stiill don't share chocolate. Ever. Some things don't change.
Saw this come across my laptop and had to read the headline several times over before it sunk in: "Blind 'Superman' Saves Colorado Teenager After Fall From Horse"
Uhhh, come again?? I needed to know more about this. Seems a teen aged Colorado ranch hand was thrown from her horse and as a result fractured her skull and bruising her brain. She was unable to walk, and lay where she fell, screaming for help.
Enter Superman. In this tale, Superman is not Clark Kent, but rather the owner of the ranch the accident occurred on, Keith Day. Mr. Day has been legally blind since birth. He can distinguish between dark and light, and some vague large shapes (think of a very blurry, vaguely horse or truck shaped object). Somehow, he was able to follow the sound of her screams to reach her. He was able to check her for noticeable breaks, and then somehow managed to carry her hundreds of yards, at one point crossing over a barbed wire fence, to where emergency personnel could reach her.
Pretty jaw-dropping stuff, huh? Talk about having a guardian angel.
(Not to put a damper on a heartwarming story, but it does kinda makes a good argument that one should always wear a helmet. Just saying.)
