today i asked sebastian if he wanted to take a walk with me.

originally adam, andrea and ashleigh were going to come on the hike as well. but they ended up having a family outing, (there are such bonuses to having both parents being teachers!), and it was just sebastian and myself.

while i had my Bible study, i let him watch cartoons, and then i packed leftover easter candy, a bottle of water for me and a container of juice for the young sir. we packed our shoes, put on mossie spray and were off.

we started walking. and talking. he asked if there would be a lot of snakes that might bite us. i said i didn’t think so, they would come out in a few more months.

after walking past middleton towers and high west, we passed a massive banyan tree. i took sebastian’s picture under it as he stretched and tried to touch the bottom branches. then we popped up to the reservoir, and looked at the flowers blooming.

next, to my little man’s chagrin, we walked up 167 steps to get to a flat, grassy plain. we walked to the eastern edge of it, and we could see our building. i called marianne, asked to go to the back of the flat and wave a brightly coloured towel. she did, and sebastian saw her and got VERY excited. a massive smile broke out over his face and he screamed HELLO TRIPLETS! very loudly.

after a while, we turned and walked up a few more steps to where the path forked. there we were offered a choice:

to the left: the peak via LUGARD ROAD

to the right" the peak via POKFULAM PATH

we chose to the right. we started walking and talking.

when we had set off, sebastian had been rather upset that adam hadn’t come on the adventure. but we started talking, and walking, and soon, everything was just fine. he was having a good time, interested in everything he was seeing, the texture of the path, the birds and the possibility of flash flood waterfalls.

we discussed how if mummy hurt her leg, or couldn’t walk, how sebastian would call 999 and tell the emergency services team where we were. every time we passed a marker, i told sebastian it was his repsonsibility to memorise what number it was. and he was very diligent. we did role playing on what the emt would say to him on the phone and what they would call to him when they came to find us. he especially liked calling out, "we’re over here!" in a deep and manly voice.

we talked about God and how he made insects able to help plants cross pollinate.

we watched ants pulling away a dead fly. sebastian really liked that bit. we saw red ants and i warned him not to touch them.

he slipped his hand into mine at times, when he was confiding something, or when we were talking about God.

when we emerged from the path on to the path that leads down to the reservoir, i gave him an easter packet of m&m’s and his juice. we kept on talking, and i told him that i was glad it had just been the two of us.

"i love the triplets and the pheasants, but i love it when it is just you and me."

he smiled at me. "why mummy?"

"because it is fun to be just the two of us. i love our family, but i can listen to you more when it is just the two of us and that is good, because you are a very interesting person."

he smiled and said, "yes i am."

and he is.

then he came home, wrote in his diary about his day and watched cartoons.