Recurring tasks / appointments - Separate instances

[Quantum7]

In a year I have a task that occurs weekly for about 40 weeks in the year. I can represent this using a task with recurrence (weekly) + giving it an enddate which ends after 40 weeks.

What I however can't seem to do, is mark one of these 40 separate instances as completed separately from the 'parent task'. If I check one as completed, I'm checking the 'parent task' as completed and therefore all 40 instances are automatically completed.

Right now the only way in which I can do this is to manually create 40 tasks each year (with separate dates). Bah.

Alternative 1
Therefore the feature suggestion is to have some way in which a distinction is made between the originating task (item) and the instances. That'd enable me to check these as completed separate from the originating task.

Alternative 2 (easier)
What would also work for this situation is to have an option to automatically create 40 tasks if I set recurrence to weekly + give an enddate 40 weeks away. A kind of batch create option .