If your little girl wants a horse for her birthday and you don't want to buy her one, just tell her the truth: horses live in smelly places with lots of dirt. The stables they live in smell bad because the horses go to the bathroom there. They go a lot and often. And they step in it and sometimes roll around in it. If you want to hang around horses, you will end up stepping in it, too. And you will have to clean it out of their hooves and brush it off their coats and scoop it up with a shovel every time you want to ride.
Mind you, once the girl gets to ride on the back of one of these smelly beauties they won't care if the whole world is covered in horse manure. But it might help you divert her attention enough to avoid such an occasion.
We did not buy Button a horse but we did buy her some lessons... figuring that a few hours of horsey joy is better than none at all. (I have since become convinced that when her lessons come to an end next month, her heart will shatter into a thousand pieces. Live and learn.) I have acquired quite an equine education watching during the few lessons she's had. Lesson #1 is that horse stables smell bad. Lesson #2 is that stables (even clean ones) are dirty places. Lesson #3 is that no matter how hard I fight against it, I have a strong aversion to both of those things. Lesson #4 is that horses are so cool that kids and their mothers will put up with a significant amount of gross stuff to be with them.
I will hang out with smelly, dirty, beautiful animals for the sake of my children and never let on that I am uncomfortable. I've just got to say though, for the record, that I am super grossed out every time the big brooms are pushed across the concrete floors through the stables and all the dust flies into the air. Dust... composed of lots of unappealing particles of hay, dirt and... manure. And I have to take a breath because the alternative is not breathing. As it travels into my nostrils and fills my lungs I think...
I am a city girl all the way. I am far more comfortable breathing dusty particles of pigeon droppings.
Button looks innocent enough but I know better. She appears in this photo to simply be admiring her lesson horse. The truth is that she is secretly hatching a plot to hide the animal in her bedroom.
Ah! The moment when all dirt and dung fades from memory and horsey love takes firm root in the heart of the girl.
"Mom, will you buy me a bag of chips?" Nope. So he (unwisely) dipped into his own pocket and bought himself a bag of chips... which came in handy when Cub needed to be distracted from dirt. I felt a lot better about the chips at that point and made a mental note to bring snacks the following week.
3 comments:
this is a beautiful blessing for your lil' girl. much praise for you and your troopers.
pax Christi -
Lena
p.s. the professor is fast becoming a handsome young man.
Telling my oldest daughter about the dirt and work involved in caring for a horse was enough to deter her from asking to take riding lessons/have a pony. She's now content to feed the horses when she's over at the soccer complex which is right next to a horse farm. Knowing how bad the smell is on a windy day at the soccer fields is enough to convince me that I don't have it in me to sit and watch her take riding lessons.
We have done the riding lessons and it just didn't even begin to scratch the itch that my two oldest ones have for horses. But, alas, we do not live on a farm and that is our reality. So, they must be content with the memories of the lessons they had (and the fact that they were the only ones who got them...no younger siblings were included...that is enough to keep them happy!)
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