Horsing Around

I have long dreaded that phone call from the Catholic Elementary School teacher which I imagined would go something like this:
Teacher: "Mrs. P, I was trying to tell the children about the immaculate conception and Lily began talking about IVF..."
Me: "Yes, she doesn't realize that her Mom and Dad weren't around back then"
Teacher: "And ICSI..."
Me: "In her defense, Joseph was getting up in years..."
Teacher: "You know how the Pope feels about this"
Me: "Yes, we've agreed to disagree...but I will try to keep Lily out of the lab"
However, the call from her teacher last week was not nearly this predictable:
Teacher: "Mrs. P., Lily and her friends were playing horsey in the yard and there was some tickling of the underbelly going on"
Me: "Tickling of the horse's underbelly"
Teacher: "Well the horse was another student, Lily was the rider/tickler. Whenever we see this kind of behaviour we report it to the parents right away"
Me: "Did you have the chance to talk to Lily about it"
Teachers: "Yes, she didn't really know what I was talking about"
So I summoned my lovely man home from work and we covered all possible explanations from hormonal imbalances to beastiality, and when Lil got off the school bus we had a long talk establishing a strict hands off policy when it came to horsing around in the school yard.
A few days later, Lil and a friend had a repeat performance in our playroom, this time Lil was the horse. I got to witness the deviant tickling in action and reopened the discussion: If you tickle a horse like that you are going to find yourself in the next county...to which she replied: we are not tickling the horse Mom, we are just tying the saddle on.
I really love horses Mom, she said while making her Xmas list this week.
You and Mr. Ed have been in enough trouble this month Lil.