dealing with {her} obsession

What does this look like to you? An owl, right? Or maybe even a cat or dog...But not if you're five and obsessed with horses. If that's the case all you see when you look at this is a horse. Horse. Horse. Horse. And good, bad (or ugly) you're going to give it nostrils and a pair of reins.

Emma has fantastic qualities that I love about her. She's strong. Confident. Determined. Focused. These are amazing qualities for a little girl to have. But these same qualities are also hard at work when it comes to her obsession with horses.

And I'm struggling with it.

I have a hard time getting her to expand her curiosities, her artwork, her reading selections, her discussions in the car, her answer to "what should we do today?" ; and to show interest in other things.

Right now, I'm torn on how to handle the situation.  And since I'm homeschooling, this issue comes up a lot for me. Do I just jump in with both feet and say, "okay, we LOOOVE horses!" We're counting and adding horses in math, horse stories for reading, horse drawings for art, horse body parts for science, horse breeds for social studies!!

Do I delicately try to move her in another direction?

Or do I enforce some 'no horses' rules?

Many people would say--This will pass. All girls are obsessed with horses. But with Emma, I'm not so sure. When she latches on to something, she latches on tight until her knuckles are white.

For now, I'm starting with a small step. Tomorrow we're getting out our sketch pads and colored pencils and answering this question: "what are you curious about?" And I intend on sitting right beside her and filling up my sketch pad with my own drawings and words, too.  (Frankly, there are too many things I'd like to learn about) but maybe I can get her thinking and breathe a little fresh air into that horse brain of hers. After that....well, I'm not really sure. But I'll be sure to sneak you a little peak at her notebook when we're done....

*****just for you know*****I've changed my words a little bit in this post this morning. I wrote it late last night-- tired, exhausted--you all know how that is. So this morning I'm reading it and feeling less concerned or something....or maybe just hearing the advice rolling in makes me realize that I should just embrace it, encourage it and take it seriously. Something tells me that if I don't give her "passion", (thanks Mindy) its due attention, I'll be breaking a little heart.  Other curiosities will come along, too.*****