Animal Phobias...

No TV week was a sucess! The kids did perfect! Last night Tayler danced with her group at the Vistaun Review. Shane stayed home with the other girls... Shane went to the 1st competition that Tayler and Saige were in and decided he had enough dance for the whole year... so for the last 5 or 6 competitions/performances we just leave him home with Kenna and Jadyn it is much easier on ALL of us!! (At the first competition he was so bored that I finally sent him away to get food - he went to Wendy's and came back with a "Hamburger" for me... that had no meat... just a bun, ketchup and a tomato! Of course he was more than willing to drive the 10 miles back to get me another one just so he could get out of watching... I made him stay... He of course loves to watch his own girls, but I think he sits there and ponders how much it costs him to have 3 girls in dance... LOTS - and more than he really wants to know! :))

Anyway while we were gone he took the other three on the 4-wheeler over to visit our friends horses. The girls love going there, feeding them long grass and petting them, and occasionally going for rides. And yes I usually go with them to encourage them to acquire a love for animals. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not what you would call an "Animal Lover" in fact animal phobic might sum it up. But how can anyone blame me really... when I was little I lived next door to a St. Bernard... It was like 3 times as big as me and I still remember looking through the knots in the fence and having that HUGE dog come running up to me and bark in my little face, or when the dog got out and chased us on to the porch - he was more than HUGE in my opinion! Plus we had a cat that LITERALLY stalked me... I still get nervous walking up the steps in my parents house... afraid that devil cat Bandit will jump out and bite my heels at any time. One day Bandit went missing and was never found... I was already married and not living there, but my mom still questioned me on the whereabouts of that cat. I reminded her that I would NEVER even touch that cat, so even if I seemed suspicious I was too chicken to carry out any sinister plan to dispose of it.

I realize I have a problem... when I walk and bike with my friends in the morning they know that I will literally hide behind them when a big (or little) dog comes at us... and yes they laugh! The other day when Kenna had new baby chicks at her school and the parents were invited up to see them I must admit I didn't REALLY want to hold one... just looking is fine with me... I had to convince myself that they were only like 2 hours old and most likely wouldn't peck my hand off yet, so I did it! My girls were so proud of me... and yes Shane and the girls laughed at me when I told them! BUT... I am trying to be a good mother and help my children enjoy animals... (Don't forget that I got the guinea pig AND the bunny for the girls, when Shane didn't even want them... granted I won't hold the bunny without a towel around it... :)) ...anyway enough about me, the point is we are encouraging our girls to enjoy animals... so... they are over petting the horses and Jadyn is loving it, that is until one of the horses whinnied SO LOUD! Shane said that Kenna turned and took off running and Jadyn burrowed down in Shane's chest to get away. Shane admited it even made him jump, but they finished feeding them and left soon after, he had no idea that poor Jadyn had been completely traumatized. When Tayler and I got home later Shane said, "Jadyn, tell momma what the horsie said." She started shaking her head with her nervous look, and then Shane whinnied like the horse... the poor kid was in her high chair and when he did that her whole body shook and she screamed/bawled as she shot right out the bottom of the chair and curled up in a petrified ball. At first it was a little funny, but the second time he did it and she froze again and fell to the groud we knew she had been traumatized! She wouldn't even look at a picture of a horse in a book and when we played the "what do the animals say" game, she cowered down when we got to the horsie. Poor Kid! I can just see it now... 30 years from now she will try to remember back when she became phobic of animals, and she will remember that it all started with feeding a horse...