Sophie on Cookie and Noah on Sugar. |
I starting riding again when my kids were five and seven years old, needing some time to re-connect with myself outside of my role as mom and wife. I'm an only child, and need alone time to re-charge my batteries. I loved my kids to distraction, but having two small creatures with constant needs sometimes just sucks the life right out of a girl. So I started taking riding lessons again. Life and schedules being what they were, sometimes I'd need to take the kids with me. (Ask me how easy it is to concentrate on inside-leg-to-outside-hand when you've realized the kids have chewed through the duct tape used to affix them to the viewing room chairs and are now wandering unsupervised through the barn.)
Fast forward a bit to the point where both my kids had begun taking lessons with me and I now had a horse of my own. Mommy-time now had a new meaning. It meant teaching them how to be safe around 1200 lb animals. It meant teaching them how to communicate with the horses and to listen to what the horses were communicating back to them. It meant spending hours commuting back and forth to the barn and then hours at the barn together, which meant we had a lot of time to talk to each other, laugh with each other, sing together, or just 'Be' together. With the kids' other sports I dropped them off, cheered them on, picked them up and then brought them home again. Sure, we talked about the soccer practice, or the lacrosse game, or what the coach had said, but with the kids' sports my husband and I were largely onlookers. The riding was something the kids and I did as a unit.
Noah and James |
My son started his freshman year at college this past Fall. Like any other mother, I worried that he'd be overwhelmed, that he would have a hard time adjusting and making friends, that he'd have a hard time without the safety net of family and friends. I shouldn't have worried so much. Shortly after school started Noah called home and told me he tried out for and made the Northeastern University Equestrian team.
Husky Equestrian Team member and Proud Mom |
Bonding with his steed |
A lot of being a parent is just bobbing and weaving and hoping you've done more to build them up than screw them up. I may have spent the gross national product of Kenya for several years running, but after hearing what his experiences with horses meant to my kid, well, it pretty much made it all worthwhile.
One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was to allow and support my pursuit of insanity, or rather horses. Love this post, it made me thing of all the things they did for me, ways they supported me, and memories we share despite their un-horsiness. Love your kids' perspectives - nothing better for keeping out of trouble than good ol' barn time responsibilities!
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