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02/13/2004 Archived Entry: "fish and pony show"

Yesterday was a full day. We started off the morning by taking Tabitha to her very first horse riding lesson. She will take riding lessons indefinitely due to a very generous gift by our friend Richard. The lessons are her birthday gift from him. The thing is, Chris and I decided not to tell Tabitha until we had it all set for when we would take her. R calls us on Wednesday to finalize the details and the following conversation was had between the child and I:

Me: "How would you like to learn how to ride a horse?"
T: "Uh, no thank you."
Me: "You don't want to learn how to ride a horse?"
T: "No"
Me: "What if we took you tomorrow morning for a riding lesson?"
T: "Then I'd say take me home"

At this point I told her that her Uncle Olaf (her name for Richard) gave her riding lessons for a birthday gift and her first lesson was the next day. She then started to cry. I was in shock. Never in a million years would have I imagined that scenario.

Me: "Well, first you start on a pony, and......"
T: "I want to ride a pony!!"

And that was that. The tears ended immediately and she started begging for a pet pony. We show up at the ranch, she takes one look at a rather LARGE horse and wondered if that was who she was going to ride, lol. Whatever prompted the fear was more than gone, I think she was actually disappointed at how small the pony was. But it is the cutest thing, named Little Bit and owned by a 6 year old girl. In addition to learning how to ride, Tabitha is also learning how to care for and groom the horse. So the first half hour or so, she brushed Little Bit and learned some safety around horses and then she got to sit on the pony and be led around for a while. She learned 3 positions and practiced those while being led around. Her lessons will be on Tuesdays from now on starting next week. It was all just wonderful. The instructor is considering starting up a Sunday class for 4-6 year olds. It will mainly be book work to learn more about horses. It sounds like something Tabitha would really like so I hope it actually gets started.

In the evening, we had more plans. "Finding Nemo" nights were being hosted by the Aquarium for members. We got to watch the movie in their theatre and then do a scavenger hunt to find all the actual fish that are represented in the movie. None of us had seen "Finding Nemo" before and it was a lot of fun. The downside would be the child behind us who had obviously seen the movie five thousand times too many and was not only speaking along, but loudly and just ahead of the dialogue in the movie. Sure her parents eventually told her to be quiet, but they were highly ineffective in actually enforcing it. I'd like to say it was only a minor annoyance, but I'd be lying.

Today I went out and picked up some Valentine's gifts for the little one. Chris and I will give her a Valentine's Barbie, a red, plush flower that says "I Love You" (she actually has 3 other plush flowers that we wound around her bed so this is totally perfect for her), some stickers, a Candyland puzzle and a heart-shaped cookie on a stick. I had initially wanted to get her a large decorated heart from Mrs. Field's, but it was going to take an hour and I just didn't have the time to wait. Chris and Tabitha snuck off and bought me a box of chocolates while we were at the mall. I've already had a couple and they are yummy! I'm not sure how long they'll last though :)