Thursday, February 14, 2008

When weekends vanish in the blink of an eye

Since mom’s organizational skills leave a lot to be desired, Sunday nights are usually a bedlam of activity in our household.

The kitchen is in disarray with pots bubbling over with dinner preparations for the week ahead, the dining table bears signs of the last supper and the morning’s newspapers, Anu wants his homework signed only when mom’s elbow-deep in dosai maavu, and the stress of chores undone for the week ahead causes mom to run around snapping at everyone in her way.

“Turn that T.V. off and go to bed!” she yells, resentful of spending an extra hour in the kitchen before she can turn in for the night.

The kids ignore her until mom thunders up to the television and turns it off amid protests.

“No fair!” whines Kuki, as she marches upstairs. “Why can we stay home only two days?”

My darling child, you only have the rest of your life to ponder over this gross injustice.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Terri, I thought only mom and I are twin souls. It seems our children are too. Mom is super organized, compared to me, if her house is in bedlam on Sunday night. Mine is on Monday morning.

Lakshmi (http://lakshmi.vox.com)

Terri the terrific said...

L, you can always clean up after aathukaarar goes to the office and kutti goes to school since you "work from home." (Before you hit me with a bat, let me explain that that's what I'd say if I were one of your neighbor maamis who come around asking, "Yenna samayal?")

Anonymous said...

The "Switch off the TV" routine seems universal as is the "Just 5 minutes more" plea...
The other thing is that they are always apparently watching the most important part of the show when you ask them to turn it off..

Terri the terrific said...

Vijay, also it's always "only two minutes left in the game," but 30 minutes later, the game still hasn't ended.

Anonymous said...

@Terri: ... its all those time outs...

Anonymous said...

Can Dad cook?

noon said...

Despite all the organizational skills (or lack of it as she says) looks like mom pampers the whole household with good food for the week prepared in advance! Really how do you do cook for five days in one day? If I make more veggies, we just seem to eat more that same night! I really need to practice this skill from now on...

Terri the terrific said...

mg, he can if humans can live on dal and roasted potatoes alone.

noon, you can do it when you don't have a choice. When the kids burst in through the door at 6 p.m. ravenous and tired, there's no time to prepare anything, only heat and eat.

Anonymous said...

Do you think the cook for entire week will work in India? No, that is NOT a rhetoric. A genuine doubt...
It seems , food tastes terrible here when cooked even one day ahead. Something to do with the weather? Or the refrigeration? Or the cook? I tend to believe it is the last...

Terri the terrific said...

Lakshmi, I thought you'd be condemned for spousal abuse if you served the master of the house precooked food in India?

Anonymous said...

Terri, I commented somewhere on a poem written by a 12 year old on maths and I now can't remember where for the life of me nor can I remember how I got there. Please help

Munimma said...

Ha, that was my previous life. Since I hated spending the Sundays cooking, I used to do it Saturday mornings. But still ended grumpy on Sunday nights.


wa - you were chez rads?

Anonymous said...

Munimma I can't remember :( Give me the url will ya

Terri the terrific said...

wa, sorry, you didn't comment here.

munimma, sounds like women lose a precious day either way.

Anonymous said...

terri:

"munimma, sounds like women lose a precious day either way."

guess what, it sounds to me like we men lose a precious day either way too! ;-)

- s.b.

Terri the terrific said...

s.b., how so? Please enlighten.