I love it that my Big Girl is starting to regularly request visits to Chroi.

I love it when Daddy comes along.
I love it when we all go to the barn.

Usually Babs runs around, Big Girl plays in the mud, Daddy chases everyone, and I pretend to be oblivious to it all while I love on my Unicorn.

No, not really. I don’t pretend to be oblivious to it all. The whole idea is for us all to enjoy Chroi, to enjoy each other, and to enjoy time at the barn.
Big Girl likes to sit on Chroi and is starting to like riding.
Babs is only a year and a half old and is still deciding how she feels about riding, but she clearly likes to at least be around horses!
Daddy does the most he can to be supportive and allow me Chroi time, and even though he’s not a “horse person” per se, he’s been getting more and more involved by brushing and walking Chroi either with or without a kid on her back. I love it.

It makes my heart most happy when we all take part, and I do my best to make that happen. Chroi is, after all, not just “my” Unicorn, she’s ours.

Today I had Big Girl in the arena with me to “help” me lunge Chroi. I told her to keep a hand on my butt at all times, so that she’d stay in the circle with me (theoretically, anyway). After lungeing we headed to the mounting block, Big Girl climbed up on Chroi’s back, and we “barrel raced” by walking the barrel pattern. Then it was Babs’ turn to go for a ride. She’s still a bit small to sit a horse on her own, so I enlisted Daddy’s help to lead Chroi while I “spotted” Babs. I wish I could know what happens in that little brain when she “rides.” The motor skills and coordination it takes to sit a horse are actually quite sophisticated, and I imagine that because so much balance and fine motor skill is required it fires up the brain quite a bit. I’m in no way educated, it’s just what I was thinking about as I watched my toddler’s face and felt her little body while she rode. We did one circuit around the arena and she was clearly done and “asked” me (with her body language) to get her down.

This tends to be the point at which I lose the girls’ attention to the many other delights the barn has to offer, such as mud, loose hay, dried horse manure, sticks, and so many other fascinating things. Daddy keeps them safe while I clean up and settle Chroi in for the evening. Then we all pile into the car and drive off happily into the sunset.

Well, at least until someone says “what’s for dinner?”

Categories: Chroicoragh, Life with a Unicorn, Living YES, The Family that Horses Together, The Horsey Life