Ted E.'s Journal

So Jackson brought home a teddy bear from school on Friday named Ted E. Bear. Ted came with a journal to document everything Jackson and Ted would do over the weekend. As it turned out, Ted was part of a class assignment involving all the kids in Jackson's class to get Ted for a weekend and document his experiences. We were instructed to just include Ted in whatever we already had planned for the weekend and not to worry about trying to do anything out of the ordinary.

Yeah right! I was relieved that Jackson was not the first kid to bring Ted home. He was the 4th. Ted had already been the center of lots of interesting activities at the other kids' houses: riding a tractor, getting a new puppy, visiting relatives, and playing outside. I hated it for Ted, but he would do none of these things at our house. Ted also went out a lot: Walmart, Zaxbys, the air field, and Farmer's Market were all mentioned. I immediately checked Ted for a camera or microphone. He reminded me of the old Teddy Ruxpin dolls, but not as creepy. Ted wore blue overalls and held a half-peeled corn stalk in his right hand. He had on a little farmer's hat, too. There was an empty battery pack behind his back, that I was tempted to find batteries for to see what he would say. I decided to stop being paranoid, though, and let it go. Ted was not sent here to see if we were bad parents or anything like that. He wasn't the weirdo. I was. He was just a stuffed toy made in China in 1995, so he probably just needed a once over with a Clorox wipe, and to not be handled too roughly.

But I couldn't help feeling sorry for myself. I was looking forward to an absolutely lazy Saturday this weekend, and we don't go out on Friday nights....Sunday was my only time to impress Ted and that was only because it was Valentine's Day and surely to God we would do something that could not be repeated by another child on their upcoming weekends!

Why do I let things like this stress me out? Or worry, rather, about Jackson being intrepreted as lame or our family as a bunch of couch potatoes by the extra eyes reading Ted's journal. Do people really care about this kind of thing?

But typical Melissa wanted to impress Ted...Jackson's teacher...Jackson's friends....Jackson's friends' parents...you get the picture. I guess it is a constant desire to be liked and to have my children liked.

So while Friday was lame, and Saturday predictable, I took pictures of Ted's little activities planning to print them out Sunday night and tape into his journal. No one else had pictures of Ted's adventures. Adventures....of course! After taking Ted to Chick Fil A and the park (yep...had to get out of the house, and Walmart had already been done) Daniel said something brilliant. We should have been taking pictures of Ted next to the painted dragon and say that he and Jackson fought dragons today, or in the airplane at Chick Fil A and say he and Jackson went flying. That man is smart sometimes....of course he could have mentioned this Friday!! It was a great idea. Taking the small things he did and turning it into wild stories. Jackson would love that. Any kid would love that. And how do you think Farmer Ted Ted would come back and report all the crazy sights and sounds anyway? Not like a parent trying to sound good, that's for sure!

So that's what we are going to do. Ted's Journal is now Ted's Log. And the justification to add pictures clarifies to a parent what kind of dragon was slain (since they will recognize we just went to the park), but kids will like to read the stories.

Ha Ha Ha. (singing) "I am so smart...S-M-R-T!" (Homer Simpson for you that don't get this)

I will have to post Ted's Log tomorrow.