Weekend Reports

I dread Mondays, not only because of the usual Monday blues and going back to work after the weekend, but also because Monday, my son has to write a weekend report of weekend activities he did with us. That means he has to paint a picture of our lives for Saturday and Sunday, in words and sketches, and publish it to friends and teachers. And we are private people, not ready to expose our lives from the eyes of an honest five-year old. We don’t want them to peek uninvited into our mess and we just can’t lead showcase lives for that report. And also the truth is that we are to the world, what our kids want us to be.
And this is what he wrote one of the weekends, of course with not so-correct spellings:
I watched my Power Ranger movie and then I got bored and I came down and watched some of their movie. I asked mom if she could play with me and she said No. Then I got tired and sleepy and they pulled a blanket on me and I went to sleep on the couch.
Along with it was a picture in a rectangle with us sitting and watching TV and in the right hand corner was him watching TV.I can’t find it now or would have scanned it.
Shame and disgust engulfed me from all comprehensible nooks and corners. His teachers would be thinking we are the kind of parents who just let TV do all the talking and parenting and are not involved with our son. Maybe she would cite our example to others and who knows we could be recommended therapy!!
While the truth is, believe me, that we are OKAY parents, if not the best. We do entertain him and take him bowling and go-carting and we meet family friends so that he plays with the kids. We play basketball and darts at times. We take him bicycling and scooter riding. And we play Monopoly and Sorry and Uno and all board games-you name it! And we even let him win, though its difficult to do that for his dad. But one nudge from me does it.
The thing is that he forgets what all we did Friday evening, Saturday or Sunday daytime. He just remembers the end, the Sunday evening-that is what is fresh in his mind, and he spills that out. And Sunday evening, just when winding down the weekend, we are drained out and laze in front of the TV, and that’s what he writes, which is so not fair!! So now its a lesson for us to reserve the energy for funnest(in his words) activity for the last part of Sunday.
But somewhere deep inside I am also grateful for what he could write and portray but he didn’t, which would go like-
Mom said this to Dad. Dad said that back to mom. And then mom said she is not going to cook lunch. Then dad asked me if I was hungry and I said yes. Then he got pizza for them and chicken nuggets for me.