I thumped Lily quite hard in the middle of the night.

To do myself justice I was asleep at the time, and I thought I was protecting her.  She was sleeping entwined in my arms, as you do when you have a lonely girl and a needy small dog, and I dreamt she kept going around to my neighbour's house and I had to make sure she didn't get out on the street.  I was outside the house and I saw Nacho, a friend's German Shepherd, lying in the doorway, and at the same time I saw Lily coming barreling through.  I scooped her up and Nacho started jumping at her trying to bite her and Lily was crying - so I did what any good parent would do, and thumped Nacho, (sorry Nikki) except... in reality I thumped my own dog.

I'm a terrible parent.

In other news, the girls came over - and Tyler - yesterday bringing with them the three smalls, T (5), A (2.5) and R(4m).  R is getting so responsive, chuckling when tickled and actually rolled over for the first time at my house, which makes me famous by default.  Hurrah for fame!

A, completely un phased by only having the use of one hand, ran about destroying things, taking whatever T had and generally having a ball.  Such an amazingly cute kid - and he is finally starting to talk, except that nobody has even the slightest clue what the babble means.

T is quite a boy, he had great fun with my Lego, at one point coming out of the media room saying "Kate, A spilt his apple juice in your TV room."  I went to help him, to find a suspicious scene awaiting me.  One rock from the garden coated with apple juice, trickles and sprinkles elsewhere, and some Lego full of juice.  

"This looks like you put juice in here on purpose," I said conversationally as I cleaned up. 

"Oh yes, A did" said T.  

Me: "Really?  He doesn't look like he would know how to do that - I think it was actually you.  Were you just trying to get the stone wet and it sprayed everywhere?"  

T: "Oh... yeah, I was."  LOL.

Children! 🙄

This morning, Manda and I decided to do a dawn stroll up Ngungun.  I say stroll because it isn't very high and it was fairly slow clocking 26 minutes on the way up.

Brushing one's hair is optional when you climb a mountain at 0430.

I'm so yellow!!!  Or maybe Manda is just very very white...

Cave on the way down, which I explored.  There was nothing in there, unless you count an old beer bottle.

Empty cave-ness.

And Lily greeted me with a scene of devastation when I got home, perhaps to pay me back for leaving her: she shook horrifically when I made her sit in the middle of it to take photos, and then ran and hid on the couch and refused to move.  Anyone want a dog?

I am now trying to nap as I have four flights tonight but I feel very very awake.  Maybe it's all the coffee.