Her First Boyfriend

Aleaha has been bitten by the princess bug. She says when she grows up, she will be a mom, a grandma, a teacher, and a princess. She wants to watch all the princess movies. I shudder at this, because I'm concerned about the theme in those movies....Sleeping Beauty does nothing but lay there, and the Prince comes, kisses her, and they live happily ever after. Snow White too lays in a death-like slumber until (guess what?!) the Prince comes along, kisses her, and they live happily ever after. But life just isn't like that, and I don't want this early stage of fantasy to mess with her forming mind and make her think such things (like, just lay around and wait for the right guy). I really have a problem with this, but I also know I should stay cool and not make too big a deal of it, lest she grab onto it even more willfully. So, I try to allow the princess stuff, to some degree.


But thankfully there's something even better that I can facilitate. See, Aleaha loves our horse Jake. We are in the market for a good kid-safe horse, but she insists that when we get that horse, Mom can ride Chloe, she can ride Jake, and Daddy can ride the new horse.

She's pretty confident that Jake belongs to her and that's that. Next year for Round-Up, she is planning to ride Jake to Pendleton: "I won't take the pick-up and trailer, Mom. I will ride him there. And it's really OK Mom, because I know the way."

Her dad smartly countered, "Aleaha, it would take many, many days to get there. What would you do at night?"

Her retort: "Well, we can stop and lay down and I will put a blanket over us."

There is just no arguing logically or illogically with her. She wants what she wants. (And she tells us incessantly!)

The other day we were down at the barn, just the two of us, and I was grooming Chloe a bit to get rid of the mud stuck to her. Aleaha was grooming Jake, from the safety of the inside of the barn. And she gave him pellets and carrots and cool calorie and COB. He was lovin' her too, no doubt, with all that attention.

Later that night, she says, "Mom, Jake's my one true love."

Oh, do I know her feeling. My heart belonged to a horse for many years, but I was a little more toward the teen years. It probably delayed my maturation in some ways, because I wasn't interested in boys for a while. But now that I'm a mom, I can see how good that really was. And I'm ALL OVER that!

So as far as my worries about her princess fixation, I can proudly coach her to consider herself to be the "Princess on the White (or sorrel) Horse". And she can leave the Prince in her dust, thank-you-very-much. At least until she's about, say, 28.

Summer 2008, Aleaha on Jake in mountains. She takes it seriously!