The Twins

Getting from Here to There

Lisa S. McLeod-Simmons
(mother of the Young Equestrians)
 

(10/2020) Emma and Sarah are busy with the start of school this month, so they asked me to fill in for them and write the September ‘Young Equestrians’ column. Fine. Glad to do it. I’ll write about horseback riding from a Mom’s point of view.

Around our house, preparing for a riding lesson, and we usually have two a week, is not just a task, not just an activity, but a full-blown event. We begin the night before with me telling Emma and Sarah to make sure their riding clothes are clean, and their gear is all together. This is how it goes.

Me, calling from the kitchen as I’m making supper, upstairs to the twins who are playing: "Emma and Sarah, please make sure all of your riding things are ready to go for tomorrow afternoon."

Their response: "---"

Me: "Girls, did you hear me?"

Their response: "---" (muffled giggles).

Me: "Seriously, it’s not going to be like last time. Make sure you have everything together tonight. Ok?"

Their response: "---"

Scuffling sound from upstairs. Sound of cat screeching from upstairs. Sound of rapid thump, thump, thud as the cat blazes down the stairs at break-neck speed, through the living room and into the kitchen. Cat has been the victim of yet another dress-up game. He’s got pieces of brown cloth wrapped around three of his legs. The fourth piece of cloth is dragging behind him, still partially attached to his little body. There’s part of an old fluffy beige scarf around his upper body and some sort of brownish feathers taped on elastic and attached to his tail. As I’m returning the poor cat to this natural state, I puzzle to myself, "he looks a bit like a small horse." I give him a loving scratch under the chin and set him free. And I tell him to be patient with twins and to refrain from exacting a too severe retribution against them during the night as they sleep. These things can escalate very quickly. Then I suggest that he makes a quick retreat to the basement.

Me (with exasperated tone and now resorting to full names): "Emma Abigail Simmons and Sarah Charlotte Simmons, I mean it!"

Their response: "Did you say something, Mama?"

Me: "---"

During supper I remind the girls that they need check their riding clothes and gear to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow. With their sweetest faces, they promise to do so as soon as they finish eating. Later that evening, after they have taken a bath, played some more (cat is noticeably absent), and finally drifted off to sleep amidst soft giggles, I go into their rooms, rummage through their drawers, and get out their riding clothes. All clean, thankfully. Sometimes dirty riding pants get put back into drawers, causing much consternation when it’s time to ride again. While the twins understand the beneficial functions of the washer and dryer (at least theoretically) and they know where these large machines are located (the same place they find the poor cat hiding in hopes of not repeating the humiliating game of dress-up), they remain confused and confounded about the how to get their dirty riding clothes from their bedroom floors down to the laundry room. Hum. You’d think that straight-A students could figure out this one.

It’s riding day morning, eight hours before we leave for Mike’s farm. I tell them they need to clean their riding boots. They are filthy. I mean really filthy, covered in mud, dust, and what I highly suspect is dried horse poop. They promise to do so right after breakfast.

After they finish eating the most important meal of the day, I’m pleasantly surprised that the girls linger at the kitchen table rather than running outside to play for a few minutes before school. I place their grimy boots in front of them on two fluffy pile of paper towel, slightly stained work clothes, a couple of Le Chameau boot sponges, and Fiebing’s boot shine from Dover Saddlery. They begin by scraping off the loose material hanging from their boots. I dodge several startlingly large bits that fly by my face, too close for comfort, and try to push out of my mind the source of the material that nearly darkened the color of my blond (and yes, more than a few intermingled stands of gray) hair. At least it’s dried and not fresh, I think to myself.

The twins then begin to use the sponges to remove weeks of muck that have been accumulating - or perhaps growing by now - on their riding footwear. As they work in a tandem rhythm known only to twins, they quietly chat about things I’m rarely privy to and don’t understand anyway since the girls still rely on some of their young childhood made-up twins’ language. Before long they are applying the boot shine. They rub on the polish and work it in well. With each circular motion, their giggles get louder and I realize that if they don’t finish soon, I’ll end up having to finish the job. But again, to my surprise, they manage to control their giggling long enough to present me with two pairs of well-polished boots.

As the twins bound out toward their rooms, softly calling the cat, trying to entreat the poor little creature out of his hiding place, I begin cleaning up the kitchen. The floor, the chairs, the sink, and the counter are all covered in what was once dried muck, but now reconstituted by the water and polish. Deep sigh. With a growing clarity in my mind, I realize that it would have been faster, easier, and certainly cleaner for me to polish those riding boots myself. But as I scrub and re-sanitize my kitchen, I tell myself the same thing that every mother says in this all too common situation. "I can’t keep doing things for them.

They have to learn to do for themselves." But then I think, "Why? Do they really have to do things for themselves at this very moment in time?" In a few years and with many tears, I’ll send them off to college and they can learn to do things for themselves then, when they are by themselves and have to clean up their own messes. Something to add to my ‘things to think about later’ list.

At about T-minus 1 hour, the household is a flurry of activity. The twins have to change into their riding clothes and bring their gear downstairs. A seemingly simple task, but it takes a full 30 minutes to complete. As I’m enjoying a few minutes of solitude at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, I hear a wide variety of thumps, small crashes, and snippets of sentences like "are you wearing my belt?" "where’s my…."

The girls spring down the stairs, outfitted in their riding attire. They’re carrying helmets, riding vests, crops, and chaps, along with hairbands. While they can normally manage their own hair, they do need some help getting it braided tightly. After the requisite complaints about pulling their hair and something about child cruelty and torture, their hair is neatly braided. Now, they just have their footwear left. Even though they don’t wear tall boots for riding lessons, and they’ve had a year of practice putting on their short paddock boots and chaps, it still seems to take them a near eternity to finish this last task. I tell them that if we don’t leave NOW, we’ll be late. Oblivious to my warning, they take their time as I stand by the door jingling my keys. But their boots do look wonderfully shiny. And as I bustle them out of the door, I take a brief moment to think how lovely they look and how fast they’re growing up. College isn’t that far away, and I well know that I’ll miss these days once they leave.

We make it to the car with no time to spare. But just as I’m getting ready to turn the ignition key, a voice in the backseat shouts, "crops, crops, where are the crops?" Not one, but both twins dismount from our red Expedition and run into the house at a full gallop in search of missing crops. A full five minutes later, the twins return to the car, crops in hand and mouths full of gumballs. We’re finally off to their riding lesson at Mike’s farm. As we drive from the yard, I can almost hear the cat’s sigh of relief, a brief reprieve. That cat loves horses as much as the twins do.