Aleaha offered to help feed the baby yesterday, which was fantastic, because then I could unload groceries and start dinner. Here she is doing a great job as Big Sister.
They are both pleased as punch. (Note that Miss A is still wearing her swimsuit -- when I picked her up from school, she had been running through the sprinkler. We all think it's pretty interesting that she has worn the swimsuit so much lately, because last year there was NO WAY they could get her to wear one at school.)
Then later it was time to transition to one of her other personas -- Rowdy Rider Girl. She also does trick riding, although I actually try to discourage that, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment....
She had to pick certain black accoutrement to match: boots (look closely and you'll see they are on the wrong feet); hat; and shirt. "I yike dis outfit, Mom, cuz them matches." Nice -- some sweet redneck grammar, too. ;)
By the way, wanna guess what she was watching on the tellie that made her want to go get all this garb on? Well, a horse movie, natch. This one was Seabiscuit. (And yes, we fast-forward through a few scenes that are PG-13. She prefers to watch just the scenes where he's racing, fortunately.)
I should have known that all those horse movies would ignite the Rider in her. After dinner, she begged to go down the barn "... and put on the halter and rope and pad and ride my horse Jake, Mom." Feeling a bit wistful for riding myself, and wanting to give her a little Mommy-Aleaha time, I agreed.
She insisted on using the black and white lead rope. "It's my favorite now, Mom." (Well, that's good, cuz the pink one I bought her last year is rusted in place on the gate! Cheap thing.)
There's a happy one. The kid, I mean. The horse is being very tolerant, but since he's missing his dinner to accommodate this ride, I can't really blame him for the expression.
Cheezy grin.
We did a few laps in front of the barn, but it was not really enough to satisfy Rowdy Rider. She wanted to go up to the house and go riding down the road. But that takes both Mom and Dad to wrangle that sort of adventure (and we use her purple saddle for those trips), so it wasn't going to happen at that point. (Dad was up at the house feeding Miri.) Also, Chloe the mare gets pretty riled up if she sees that Jake appears to be "going somewhere" without her -- even if that somewhere is a 20-foot diameter carousel ride in front of the barn. So I wasn't about to manage a three-year-old and 2 horses at the same time. Therefore, it was a brief ride, only serving to whet her appetite, I'm sure.
You see now why I discourage too much trick riding on the horse in the livingroom? Wouldn't want those skills to spill over to the real thing!
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