Riding Lessons

We have managed to keep up with riding lessons for Ari during the cooler months.  It isn’t easy, but it’s oh so worth it.  Usually, Bella and Gabe can be satisfied by just running around and causing little bits of trouble here and there how kids usually do (tormenting tortoises and baby chicks, climbing in wood chip piles, losing shoes, and the like), but lately, they have been wanting more.  Bella and Gabe (but especially Bella) have been begging for a chance to ride the horses themselves.  I can’t say ‘no’ to these things, and so I took them out on a morning when they could not just ride, but learn how to ride the horses like real cowboys and cowgirls.  This is the Wild West after all.

Oh, she loved it.  She loved it so much, in fact, that she didn’t speak the entire time.  Speechless and beaming.

He did a great job, although he felt badly kicking the horse in the sides.  I remember feeling the same way when I rode for the first time as a kid.

Ari didn’t feel left out at all.  She knew that this was their turn and that hers would come again soon.  Ariana loved interacting with her horse face to face.

I’m going to digress a minute just to bring up how far Ari has come in her relationships with animals and, more specifically, in overcoming her fears of animals.  It’s been a while since she’s shown any signs of trepidation, let alone phobia, around furry friends.  This was not so easily outgrown.  In fact, it wasn’t outgrown at all, but had to be modified through a behavioral therapy technique known as Systematic Desensitization.  My Masters degree is in Counseling Psych, so this was something that I was able to implement without the aid of another therapist.  To onlookers (friends and family included), this technique must have looked like torture at the time, but as you can see, it was anything but.

You be the judge, does Ari look like she has been permanently traumatized by her early experience or just the opposite (can you tell I took a lot of heat for this?)?

Before:                                                                                                 After:

Before:                                                                                                After:

Pat pat pat.  Okay, my moment to gloat is now over :).

Another wonderful day.