We're leasing a horse.

Some people lease cars.
Houses.
furniture, maybe.
But we're leasing a horse.
This specific horse in the picture with my Emma, actually.
My daughter is amazing on a horse. She was born for this. Her teachers tell me often "she's a natural" and I know that to be true, despite my discriminating eye for riding technique, because she was in love with horses before she could talk or walk.
Emma loves to ride and has been riding since she was three. She has been competing for the last year in Peruvian horse shows, and it's such fun!
There are lots of kids who like horses. They have an interest in horses.
Some kids start taking lessons because, as one Mom told me last week, they'd already tried dance, karate, gymnastics, and cheerleading. None of them took. (Dear goodness.)
And then there are horse people.
Somehow, my daughter was born into this group of people.
This is a foreign world to me that I'm trying to be acquainted with.
She's not alone. There are lots of horse people! I can spot them a mile off now. They love horses like Emma does. They sometimes prefer them to people. They are gentle and kind people. Laid-back, easy-going. They run on their own timetable. They could be quiet, unless you ask them about their horse. Then they're on. They're generally just really nice folks, seemingly untouched by the carnal world. They don't have time to be corrupted by society. They're too busy with their horses. I'm happy to embrace the wonderful world of horse people!
So I'm a horse Mom. Horse Moms have responsibilities. Horse responsibilities.
I try desperately to fit in with the horse people and look like I know what I'm doing. But I don't. And I stick out like a sore thumb. I feel dumb more than half of the time. I wish I could tell people, I'm really a fairly intelligent woman. If my daughter were in the music world, or almost any other world, I would not look ignorant all of the time. But I'm just new to this horse world. I'm an alien here.
I sometimes explain to people, Emma is a first generation horse girl. It's not her fault I'm clueless. Most people do this, and their parents did it, and they come from a whole family of wonderful horse people. Some of the girls she competes with live on horse farms. Their parents are full-time professional horse people, and they ride daily.
Then there's poor Emma. She has a clueless horse Mom, who drags all four kids to the stables once a week only and still can't put a bit in the horse's mouth by herself. I stink at that!
Emma has a local show this Spring, and we decided to lease a horse so she could practice on one horse all the time and ride that horse in the show. It's the same horse she showed on the last two shows. This thrills her! She wants more than anything to own her own horse! Most girls do. But this is crazy expensive! (To get a show quality Peruvian horse. Not just any horse, mind you. Maybe she'll get a horse instead of a car someday.)
So we're leasing. It's kind of fun. We can pretend we own this horse for a few months and I can pretend to be a legit horse Mom.
I can tell you this: it bring me pure joy to see my child doing something she loves so much and is so good at! It's just fun.