Where did my maternal instincts go?

Went floating with my son yesterday.  For those who don't know what that means, let me explain.  You find an inner tube, jump into the nearest river and go.  Pretty much the only planning involved is arranging trips back to your car.  Its a pretty popular thing to do around here.  So after church we went.   First we tied our tubes together.  This way we could stay together and share the experience.  About 5 minutes into the water, my son unties us.  He said I was slowing him down.  Fine.

We approach the first rapids.  I am excited.  My son is paddling frantically towards me.  He grabs the rope.  He didn't want to do this alone after all.   We make it through and it was fun.   Mike is still hanging on to the rope.  I tell him to go ahead and let go.  He said no.  So more rapids ahead.  There were bigger than the last ones.  Mike has me turned backwards and still has the rope.  I yell at him to let go.  I don't want to do this trip backwards.  He yells no.


We are approaching another rapid.  There is a dead tree in the middle of them.  Mike is screaming we are going to hit the tree.  I tell him to help me steer away from it.  His arms and legs are flailing everywhere.  I realize that unless he starts helping, we are both going to get dragged into the tree.  So I put my foot on his tube and "KICKED IT AWAY".  My son is shocked and starts screaming "don't leave me mommy!"  I pass the tree and am through the rapids.  My son has run into it and his tube flipped.

Now before you think I am a murderer, let me explain.  The river is about 2 and half feet deep.  After he hit the tree, he stood up and was screaming that the tree flipped him.  We were both wearing life jackets.  I saw he was fine.  He was running to catch his shirt.  He had tied his shoes onto his tube and they had wrapped around his leg.  The whole scene was right out of the three stooges.  I couldn't stop laughing.

He catches up and said that I was a bad mother.  I barely heard him cause I couldn't stop laughing.