The Itch Fixer

I've decided that Tiki's title for me is not Mom #2 or Second Mom, it's The Itch Fixer. I may regret this later in life, but for now, I don't mind the title. It started a few days ago when we were doing our 24/7 vigil on her trying to get her through her impaction. She obviously was having trouble and was biting at her sides, but she also was simply itchy in several places. I was sitting on the beanbag in the stall while she was trying to itch her stifle and told her "come here and I'll fix it for you". She promptly marched right over and presented her side to me and I scratched it for her. She then began to point to a bunch of different places with her nose and her hind hoof and I scratched them all. Mona thought this was an awesome new service I was providing and walked over, used her nose to point to her front leg, chewed it a little and then presented it to me to scratch. I sighed, and started scratching the leg. She then pointed to her hip etc. So I ended up standing between the two of them in the middle of the stall, scratching Mona's hip while she was scratching Tiki's butt and Tiki was scratching (best as she can with no teeth) my leg for me. I was just laughing so hard while the itch "circle" was going on. Now, when Tiki has an itch, she just comes up and points to it and waits. Now, I know this isn't all that unusual, but I still find it really funny to experience it.

So this morning as I'm cleaning their stall Tiki comes up to me and points to the dock of her tail and waits. I dutifully scratch her, since I am The Itch Fixer now, and go back to cleaning the stall. I lean behind the other side of Mom to clean up a pile and feel this presence next to me. Tiki has walked up behind me. She taps me gently on my back with her nose to get my attention, I turn to her, eye to eye, and she reaches out and briefly licks my cheek, like a little kiss. It just seemed so much like "Thanks Mom!" Now, the logical side of me knows she's just a foal being a foal, but my heartstrings tugged, I giggled, and just looked her straight in the eye and said "you're welcome".