It's raining Again

It's raining...Again!
I can't believe it's January. The weather is so mild my forsythia is still popping out flowers - the idiot. I keep telling it that it's mid winter, and any little blossom will get frozen, but yellow flowers still appear on the branches. I wonder if it will be flowering in the spring. My daughter and he friend went outside to walk the dogs, and her friend fell and sprained her ankle. It's always worse when it's somone else's child. Mine don't seem to get into scrapes, but I've had to drive several of their pals to the emergency room for stitches or plasters. One girl fell and snapped her front tooth right off, which was probably the worst thing that happened. Another time we took the kids and their friends to a miniature golf course - and of course it's the friend who gets whacked on the head with the club (not even by anyone we knew - the kid went to another hole to see what was going on.) And each time I was frantic with worry and wishing it had been my kid instead! If it was my kid, I wouldn't feel so awful - like I was supposed to watch them every second, because my kids know that I'm a very 'hands off' mom, who has always let them go on hikes, ride bikes, climb trees - alone. I usually wave as they set off, (with the dogs in tow) and wait for them to come home. So I tend to do the same for their friends. "Sure, go out and walk the dogs - see you in a while." And then here they come five minutes later, the friend with scraped hands and a swollen ankle. (off to check - I made her sit and put ice on it - yes, still swollen but not turning blue or anything.)
I'm such a bad mother that I forget to have my son's stitches out last week. Yesterday he asked me when he should have them out and I'd Completely Forgotten he'd had 3 stitches! (he had a mole removed) No big deal - so I forgot. If there's no huge cast, you can be sure I'll forget. So I took him to see my friend Catherine this morning (a nurse) and she snipped them out and laughed at me for worrying. But I can't help it - as a bad mother I must always worry that my neglect is going to make my kids A) Hate me or B)Become Independant. In the best of worlds it would be B, but I'm always worried about A.
I'm a bad mother because I am sitting here blogging instead of hovering over the poor girl's ankle, but as she's laughing with my daughter, I can be forgiven for thinking she's all right. She keeps breaking off to cry out dramatically "Ow, My Ankle!" but I think that is just theatrics, and since she's been enrolled for three years in a row in drama class, I tend not to take her very seriously. (Just an aside here - why do most poeple take actors so seriously? They are Actors! They dramatize, they excel in theatrics, they are HAMS. Just as I don't take my children very seriously - "Mom, he killed me!" - so I don't take actors seriously either.)
I am not, however, as bad as my husband's aunt, who didn't pay attention to her daughters cries that her arm hurt. TEN days later she finally took her to the doctor who diagnosed a broken collar bone. The child was about twelve. Her Husband was a Surgeon. This is the mother who had a spaniel who growled when her daughter approached her. She would snap at her daughter - "Can't you see you're upsetting the dog?" Now there was a woman with motherly instincts.
I like my husband's aunt, but if I'd been her daughter, I think the dog would have mysteriously died of poison...But then again, maybe not. Maybe the mother would have...Oh, I am getting seriously off subject here.
I was saying that the weather is incredibly warm for the season, and that I was a terrible mother, which isn't totally unrelated. If we turn it into a metaphor for the earth and humans (as being caretakers for the earth) you can agree that we've done a pretty awful job of taking care of the earth, and if things start heating up, you can be sure it's out own fault. What happens when kids rebel? What happens when the earth rebels?