What makes my day?

Today has been a really good day, even though loads of things aren't going quite as planned.  To start with, I'm still not sleeping well at night.  Can't figure it out but my mind is really busy and I'm having a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep.  I woke up with the kind of headache where you can feel your pulse in your head.  Those are always fun.  So it probably wasn't the best idea to check "change last name on my credit card" off the to do list first thing.  The guy was super nice, but I'm not sure if English isn't his first language or if it was his first day and he was nervous or what.  Let's just say that I'm pretty sure the chances of my new card arriving with the correct spelling of ANDRING on it are pretty slim.  Multiple tries and I'm not sure we still arrived at the same destination.  Tim is off playing farmer all day, most of the kids are gone with their other parent and that leaves Libby and I home alone.

So of course we head to the barn to ride.  Heading to the barn is usually all it takes to put my day on the right track.  Today we were supposed to ride, then clip and wash horses for her senior portrait shoot tonight.  Her third attempt at a senior portrait shoot as the weather refuses to cooperate and we keep having to reschedule.  Now those of you who live near us and are reading this can tell the others what the weather is doing right now.  Yeah.  It's raining.  So we had to reschedule the shoot.  Again.  Tim joked that I'm trying to stall her being a senior and leaving us after graduation by not getting her pictures done.  Believe me, if I could control the weather.... let's just say, we wouldn't be having any snow days.  Ever.

Now a person would think that with all these things going wrong, I might be on the fast track to crabby.  But there is a special someone at the barn who has her way of cheering me up no matter what crap is going wrong in my day.  She's a big girl, but still kind of a baby.  So we tend to call her... you probably have guessed.. Baby China.  Some day she might get old enough where we just call her China.  But for some reason, Libby and I can't help talking baby talk and calling her Baby China.  Even though she is the tallest horse we own and 15.1 at just two years old, she's still the biggest "baby" on the place, but she is our baby.

What did the big bay filly do today that makes her so special?  Well...
1.  She rocked trail practice again today.  For example, at one point, she knocked into the pole that is the end of the "gate" and knocked it over.  Giant white pole lands on the ground by her feet.  Does she spook?  No.  She just looks at it.  Since I still had the rope in my hand, I hauled it back up and set it upright, banging it into her a few times on the way up.  She never moved and acted entirely bored with the entire situation.  That is one of the many reasons why I love her.
2.  She had a few strides of a really sweet lope and if finally figuring out where her legs should go.
3.  She wore an English saddle for the first time and I finally get to really feel that hunt seat horse under me.
4.  She let me clip her, including ears with no twitch whatsoever.

But none of those are why she made my day.  Let's back up to when we were first getting horses out.  Daryl had a visitor show up at the barn this morning and she brought with her, her granddaughter.  This  sweet little girl was probably around 7 - 9 years old and a real chatterbox.  Nothing shy about her and she had an obvious love for horses. First she chatted up Libby and helped her "brush" Coupe.  It was really adorable.  If Coupe had been made of glass he wouldn't have had a scratch on him as gently as she was helping brush.

Then I came in with China.  So she helped me "brush" China as well.  And China stood like a rock.  Not even stomping at flies like she usually would.  The little girl was in love and kept saying what a nice horse she was.  She was in awe that Libby and I were going to ride because she had never ridden on a horse before.  So of course, I had to ask her if she wanted to ride.  She was like "My mom would never let me, but my grandma might!  I'll ask her!"  And she bounced back in no time to say that she could go for a ride.

So picture this.  China is tall.  Little girl is short.  If you have little kids, you know how they get on tall horses.  We got her a step stool and she put one foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up the best she could.  Then she had both knees in the saddle and was wiggling around trying to figure out how to get one leg on each side and still hang onto the saddle horn.  Finally she plunked herself into the saddle and was ready to go.  China, at this point giving me the side eye, was not so sure that her rider was ready for a ride but walked off with me as slowly and carefully as she possibly could.

I can assure you that it was the slowest China has ever walked a lap around the indoor and then the outdoor in her short life.  Turtles may have beat us in a race.  But she was making sure she didn't lose that cargo on her back.  And the little rider never stopped talking.  I'm not sure she even took a breath.  She made sure Daryl and her grandma knew she was "really riding a horse" and she wanted to go through all the trail obstacles on the "obstacle course" while we were out there.

When we got back and she dismounted she asked me how often we were at the barn.  When I told her every day that it wasn't raining we tried to ride she told me that she was going to be at her grandma's all week!  And she couldn't wait to ask her grandma if they could come back every day so she could see the horses and go for a ride.

It probably doesn't seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but seeing the joy on that little girl's face absolutely made my day.  And I was so proud of China.  I know she's a good horse and she has learned a ton this year, but I have never been more proud of her than I was today.  Patience of a saint in her big body.  More than any ribbon or trophy on the shelf, putting smiles on the faces of little kids is the best gift she can give me.