The Riding Mum has a couple of two legged kids, a varying number of the four legged variety (horses, dogs, cats, chickens (admittedly not four-legged) and the odd rodent that comes and goes) and one VERY long suffering other half. Needless to say life on the farm gets messy – in more ways than one. The story usually begins when something goes wrong…
So, one day I sent my son to school with drugs. And I’m not talking about the prescription kind that you get from the chemist. (I can already sense the raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns from this side of the computer, don’t worry I know, who does that right?!)
Not surprisingly, his school took a dim view of the little packet of white granules my 9 year old was showing off to his mates in the playground at morning tea. A meeting with the Principal ensued, the riot act was read and appropriate punishments dispensed. To me that is, not him.
In my defence, it had been a crazy, chaotic whirlwind that morning to make the bus (and god forbid they should miss it and I had to drive them in! My ride time window would have shrunk by a solid half hour and I would have been in trouble for doing the drop off in the 3 day old jods and shirt I had been throwing on to hang around the horses. On a completely unrelated note, once upon a time, not so long ago, I used to get dressed up every day in a skirt suit, heels and makeup and drive to a perfectly respectable and air conditioned office. Funnily enough, the kids never complained about me doing the school drop off or pick up in those days I still don’t know why!).
Anyhoo back to the whirlwind: as any self respecting horse owner would know, bute sachets are best kept in the fridge if you want them to last and, if your horses decide to regularly engage in the non-self-preserving antics that mine do, you need to keep a supply on hand! So I keep mine in the fridge. On the second shelf for easy reach. Right under those cups of SPC fruit the kids like to take to school for fruit break. Hmmmm.
I still maintain that it wasn’t me, I’m pretty sure one of the lunchbox handlers between the fridge and the school tampered with that particular lunchbox. Or maybe one of those mums of the year (aka MOYs and yes, we all know who they are!) planted it just to remind me how much my children suffer as a result of my equestrian addiction.
I do take comfort in the thought though that while ever me and the fam are living on the farm, spending all our money on animals and motorbikes and the latest fad in saddle cloths (with extra pink, shiny bling please) my children will never have the resources to buy the real thing do horses, not drugs darlings. Yes they are more expensive in dollars but you do get so much more for your buck! (Often in more ways than one) What other hobby is so all consuming in both time and money that it keeps your kids too broke and busy to be bothered with other less healthy options?
But I have accepted that I will occasionally getting the odd look from a MOY or a strange phone call from school letting me know about the latest accidental schoolbag inclusion (at least it wasn’t during breeding season. Much more difficult things to explain can be found in my fridge around that time of year!)
Just keep riding, fellow mums, until next time 🙂
The Riding Mum
