Horsey School!!

Today was Sophia's first day of Horsey School!  Horsey School! is apparently a BIG BIG BIG BIG deal for Sophia.  If I had known how she would react, I would have done this a zillion years ago.

The other day we signed her up for Horsey School!  As she has been pretty ambivalent about the idea of going to big girl school, I thought she would be equally ambivalent about Horsey School!  Turns out, I was wrong.  The days before Horsey School! she tried on different outfits, shoes, even a hat, to find the right combination for her first big day.  She practically ran to the car this morning.

the photo above is not from Horsey School! The camera has been missplaced and was not available for Horsey School!

Sophia's horse is named Hilda.  Sophia is in love with Hilda.

The stable does a class called quarter and quarter.  The children have 15 minutes in the area learning about how to hold the reins, start the horse going, trot, and stop.  Then they take off for 15 minutes out on the common.  Sophia came back from the common, got down from her horse and declared that she wanted to go again, she wanted to groom her horse, and take her back to her stable.  She is now signed up for another lesson on Wednesday with a stable management class afterwards where she will get to take off the saddle, groom the horse, and do all the required things to take care of Hilda.

Poor Handsome Hank.  The stable only starts children riding at three years of age.  Maybe, if he is interested, he can have a go after his birthday.  While signing Soph up for the school, Hank made friends with a HUGE horse named Nemo.  I looked out the office door and saw Hank and Nemo nose to nose looking at each other.  They were both so interested in each other and neither of them were afraid of the other.  It was so cute and would have made an awesome photo.....except a certain little girl has misplaced the camera and there are no new photos to be taken. 

Keep your fingers crossed that we find the camera and I can post photos of Soph and Hilda.

On a different note, Hank-o is really starting to show his personality.  When Soph was his age, she was interested in new things and wanted to explore, but nothing can compare with the little scientist Hank.  He seems to need to experience everything in order to understand it.  He had to catch the bumble bees and hold them in his hands, (and still does, just with more caution.)  He watched ants for ages and puts his hand near the ants so they would climb on him.  He picks up all sorts of bugs and spiders, some of which are really big and hairy.  He touches all the plants and flowers and wants to eat every strawberry, black currant, raspberry he sees.  He saw Nemo, the giant horse and went right over to her to say hello and touch her nose.  I don't think it is a "no fear" thing, it seems more like a "curiosity and need to experience first hand" thing. 

Maybe it is just a boy thing.  Not sure.

I just don't remember Sophia being so tactile in her exploring.

It is really interesting to watch and see how different he is from his sister.  Spatial relations, hand eye coordination, and puzzle/putting stuff together is clearly his strong suit.  He can put puzzles together and sort shapes into the right holes faster than she could at his age and even older.  Physically, he is pretty far ahead of her at that age too.  He is so coordinated!  Of course his verbal skills are way behind hers at the same age, so I am sure if all sort of evens out.

They are so interesting; my little science experiments.  :)