A few months ago Isaac and I saw a clip from Lord of the Rings in which one character outraced a horde of bad guys on a horse.  It is a spectacular scene and the horse riding is incredible. Since then Isaac has been obsessed with horses.  It actually goes back further than that.  He loved the Clydesdales at Budweiser, so much so that we went twice.

When Pete Gauthier came to work at the office, I noticed that he had a picture of someone in his office in an old time carriage.  The person looked thoroughly modern, but the carriage was so remarkable and unusual that the photo looked impossible.  As it turns out, it was a real picture and the picture was of Pete's wife Ester.  Ester is a huge fan of horses.  Her family rode and owned horses and as I have learned from Gretchen--there are two kinds of people in the world horse people and those who don't get it.  Pete's daughter Grace not only rides horses but she competes in jumping competitions.  There are lots of fancy horse words that I don't know, describing all of this, but you get the idea.

I told Pete about Isaac's love of horses and he told me to come out to his house in New Hampshire and we could see his family's two horses--Irish and Remy up close.  It took a few weeks to line everything up, but this past weekend we went.

The house is in Hopkington and it sits on the top of hill overlooking a wildlife preserve.  Just around the side is a small barn and a pasture.  When we arrived the horses were eating hay.  Isaac and I approached as Bianca and Ethan were in the car (Beethy was waking up from a nap). It turns out horses are pretty loud, but Isaac was very brave.  Last year at this time, we went to Kimball farm and he just couldn't ride the horses out of fear.  And those were small horses.  Irish and Remy are both former race horses and Remy in particular is spirited and big.  We watched them horse around (couldn't resist) and then Ester, Grace, and Pete brought them into the barn.

Isaac and I got to see both horses up close, but Irish was the star of the show.  He was super calm and quite fascinated with Isaac.  Isaac asked a million questions and Ester had one million and one answers.  We learned a little bit about horse anatomy and a lot about caring and handling horses.  Isaac and I took turns brushing Irish down (he had rolled in the dirt just before we got there).  In all it was pretty incredible to see this animal so close.

Then Grace took Irish out and walked him.  It was then that Isaac got to get up on Irish and ride around.  Here is the video:


As Irish made his way around the field Isaac was serious but not scared.  He did an excellent job and Grace was great with both Isaac and Irish.  It was a very special thing for us and Isaac was thrilled.  Pete and his family, horses included, were awesome. 

Ethan had Hand, Foot, and Mouth this past week and it was brutal.  Unlike with Isaac, he never spiked a high temp, but he did have a covering a blisters that was pretty terrible.  Bianca and I had to take random days off this week and it was stressful.  Then, on the last day I was home with Ethan, he decided to put everything all together and he took some real steps, with, of course, his brother as the thing that encouraged him to walk.  These are literally his first steps ever and I got them on video:



How amazing is that?  This kid, you gotta watch him.  He is doing amazing things all of the time. 

Ethan's language abilities have EXPLODED since two Fridays ago.  He came home from school with about twenty five new words, which is impressive as he had two before.  Hot, ball, and a whole host of other words are now part of his regular speech.

But it is not just that he can say the words.  He knows what they mean.  A few days ago Ethan and I were reading Good Night Moon (what a lovely book) and he was pointed at the balloon and saying "Ba" for ball.  He did it over and over again.  Then I flipped to a page without the balloon to test him.  And he still said "Ba".  I thought "Well, he is just a little guy after all and he has had this word in his vocabulary for about fifteen minutes..."  But he was very insistent--"Ba, ba, ba."  I told him "No Ethan, no ball on this page."  But he continued tapping the page saying "Ba."  I went to turn the page and he held it down with one of his chubby little hands and said "ba" again. 

He pointed to the fireplace in the picture and as I looked a little closer I noticed that there was, in fact, a ball.  It was a series of three balls one stacked on top of another that, in the picture, were the fireplace screen.  They were tiny, they were not the center of the image, but they were in fact round objects or "ba."

I full expect and delight when my children display greater intelligence than I do.  I just didn't expect to happen so soon.  YIPEE!