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With summer in full swing, Faribault mothers get creative in finding activities for the kids.
The bell rings for the final time and school is out for the summer. The kids are overjoyed, but mothers may be left wondering how will they ever keep their children busy during the long summer hours.
Girlfriends gathered with five Faribault women — with children aging in range from 3 to 21 — to get their thoughts on summer activities that will keep kids entertained, involved and responsible. Ideas stemming from their own childhood experiences, to sports, to family activities were discussed, providing offerings that will surely inspire moms throughout the region.
Participants:
Kris Kohl — Children: Sophie, 12, Kyle, 10, Chloe, 10; husband John; works as a substitute teacher during school year
Paula Mathews — Children: Drew, 19, Jessie, 15, Lauren, 13; husband John; is part business owner of Phone Station Inc.
Lisa LaCanne — Children: Jessica, 20, Ryan, 17, Nick, 14, Alec, 10; husband Jeff; works as a stylist at JC Penney Salon
Cindy Nawrocki — Children: Chelsie, 14; Josh 13, Jordan, 7; husband Nate; works at Wieber Physical Therapy
Lynette Stroh — Children: Mary Clare, 16, Catherine, 15, John Paul, 14, Rebecca, 13, Daniel, 9, Elizabeth, 8, Isaac, 5, Sarah, 3; husband Justin; stay-at-home mom
The bell rings for the final time and school is out for the summer. The kids are overjoyed, but mothers may be left wondering how will they ever keep their children busy during the long summer hours.
Girlfriends gathered with five Faribault women — with children aging in range from 3 to 21 — to get their thoughts on summer activities that will keep kids entertained, involved and responsible. Ideas stemming from their own childhood experiences, to sports, to family activities were discussed, providing offerings that will surely inspire moms throughout the region.
GF: What are some ideas for keeping kids entertained during the summer, some tried and true favorites?
Lynette: I have more of the younger children, so when outdoors, for the 3-year-old and 5-year-old, I fill cups with water and give them a paintbrush and they’ll paint water on the sidewalks or on the garage door. They love that and it’s a nice clean activity.
Also, I fill a big bucket of water and give them a plastic water pitcher and the smallest cup possible and I let them water the flowers in my garden.
Sidewalk chalk is a good one and we make paths on the long driveway and they ride their bikes along those paths.
Paula: I have older children, so we spend a lot of time around the campfire in the backyard. Typically we start off playing volleyball or basketball or Frisbee or football. We spend a lot of time just talking around the campfire and doing your typical joking around with each other.
GF: Are your kids involved in sports?
Paula: They do camps — volleyball, basketball. Now that my son is older he typically helps out with the camps. They do all love sports; they have their own drive when it comes to it, it’s not something we force. In fact we sometimes have to reel it in a little bit to get our family time in.
Kris: My son also goes to basketball camp and as I was dropping him off today he said, “I really, really hope that Drew Matthews is my coach again!” They do such a good job of using the older boys as coaches.
GF: How long does the camp run?
Kris: One week for an hour and a half a day. The girls went last week. They come home and play what they’ve learned in the yard and show us and teach us and we play with them.
GF: Do you feel that camps are worthwhile investments?
Kris: Definitely, and not just because wow, all of a sudden they are great basketball players or volleyball players, but because they love it. They love being with their friends they have a great time and they feel good about what they’ve learned and what they’ve done.
Lisa: And they’re involved and away from each other. It keeps them apart for a bit of time. We are out on a farm, so we have no neighbors. They’re always together. So by going to some of these camps they’re being involved with something and it gets them away.
Cindy: My youngest is involved in the Fun Center up at Jefferson, which is Monday through Thursday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. In the mornings before that he is home with one of the two older siblings. Chelsie has a baby-sitting job three days a week.
Josh plays baseball in the evenings so he gets the morning to hang out with Jordan and they go down to the pond and go fishing or play catch outside. Then he bikes Jordan to Fun Center. He gets the afternoons to himself and has things he needs to accomplish.
Chelsie is in a hockey camp and they skate and do dry land a lot. Two nights a week she is in Mankato and so we ride share with a couple of other families. She really, really enjoys it and has four tournaments during the summer. She’s working out and she’s 14 so she doesn’t really realize she’s working out, but it’s teaching her much better habits along with enhancing her skills.
Josh is in a camp at Shattuck for hockey, and Jordan will do anything he can … he plays ball and wants to go all the time. The more the merrier for him.
We’re pretty big into hockey; we really love it. My husband still skates and coaches. It’s really a family event. Sometimes it can get overwhelming and you have to reel them back in and keep your family base. We all do supper together, and we all go to each other’s games as much as possible. It’s really nice — everybody watches each other and encourages each other and criticizes each other and critiques everybody’s playing.
My husband plays softball. I try to throw myself into some volleyball just to see if I can make it work with my schedule.
GF: Do you find that it’s more difficult to find things for your kids to do or do you have to reel them in because there are so many things to do? Or, have you been able to strike a good balance?
Kris: I think we’ve kind of pulled back a little bit. As soon as they got old enough to sign up for things, I signed them up for everything they could be signed up for and now I’ve eased up a bit and don’t sign them up for so many things, knowing how fast the summer goes by and wanting to have some days when there isn’t anything to do.
Going back to what Lisa said, I like to spend parts of days with just one of my kids, take them away from the others and do something special with just one. I don’t know if that comes from having a set of multiples, but that is really healthy for our family. I try to do that every couple of weeks.
GF: Are there activities that your kids of different ages will do together?
Lynette: Our oldest is 16 and the youngest is 3, so the nature center (River Bend Nature Center) is a big thing for our family to go to together.
And fishing — not everyone in our family likes to fish, but I grew up fishing, so I kind of round up everyone.
We also have a musical family. I’m the only one who’s not musical in the family, but the kids got my husband’s genes in that, so a lot of times it’s music, just singing. My two older girls record songs. They’ve written many songs and harmonize together. Mary Clare plays piano and guitar and they play in concerts.
Also, just going to friends’ homes to visit. I was a farm girl growing up and it’s fun just to let everyone have that adventure of things I grew up with.
Lisa: Being out on the farm, my kids are always together, and even though they’re spread apart in age, they’ll go out and play baseball together or play round bale tag (run across the tops of round bales and try to tag each other).
They find things to do, and I like that they have to use their imagination rather than everything being so set. They can go out and explore the woods and try to build a tree house if they want — you know, just have fun — and a lot of times they will all just get together and do that. Even my daughter who is almost 21 will go out and bike ride with them or whatever.
Paula: The same at our house. Obviously, my kids all love sports, so with Drew home from college he says, “Come on girls, get up off the couch, let’s go shoot some hoops,” or “Come on, I’ll take you to the Dairy Queen.” So they do find things to do, but it’s nice to see them all together doing things.
Kris: My kids will put on plays, the three of them, but especially when they get together with their cousins at their grandparent’s house. There are 10 on that side of the family ranging in age from 19 to 9. It used to be simple little plays, but now the older cousins have camera phones and video phones so now it’s an actual movie production. Grandma has dress-up clothes and high heels to use. Even the older ones are still interested in doing that with the younger ones and it’s something they look forward to.
GF: How about rainy day activities?
Lynette: I like to take the little ones to the Burger King play land just to stay in town, and they get their sugar high with their favorite pop … and refills and refills … and go up and down the slides yelling from the top, “Mom, can you see me?”
I’m always saying things about the little ones, because the older ones, they really do find things to do. They have lots of friends. Like I said, my daughters are musicians and they have musician friends and belong in a band so they’re always jamming…and I’m real happy when it’s not at our house.
As far as camps, having several children, it’s more difficult to take part in camps, whether financially or because we have one vehicle: a 15-passenger van. It’s kind of tricky when my husband is using the van and at times we’re forced to do creative things that are free. We walk to the park all the time. They like to bring little containers and fill them with gravel from the park and pour it down the slide to make the rain noise. So it’s kind of just a lot about creativity.
And I’m always amazed because I feel like I’m seeing my childhood lived through them. I grew up on a farm with the one vehicle too and, like Lisa said, we just found things to do. We would try to dig the biggest hole we could and we thought we were digging to the end of the earth — just this huge hole and that would take all day. Or rake paths in the forest to ride our bikes or play with the animals on the farm. There’s always something to do, so you’re never limited, really.
Our kids have never been involved in a sports camp, ever, but my son John Paul is in soccer. But coming from a musical family, it’s amazing how music can just fully occupy the mind of a child and that’s what they’re interested in. They’d rather play the piano or write a song and they love that. It’s been really nice.
Cindy: The kids will make a play or play army or play the keyboard and think they’re all musicians. They all have great imaginations and know how to use them. The Fun Center — they’ll go there.
Chelsie does a lot of story time in the house and builds tents and forts with them. Josh is kind of left and has to still make his bed and clean his room and do the dishes. He seems to get it all done whether it’s raining or not. That seems to be an advantage of having afternoon chores for him.
GF: Do you find that in the summertime you try to have your kids have more responsibility as far as chores, etc. or do you find it’s better to ease up in the summer?
Kris: Definitely more.
Paula: I agree. I think more or they have a tendency to sit around or watch TV or sleep in late, which is OK, occasionally. But I know that if I leave a list for the girls, they happily do it. They’re more than willing, but they need a list or discussion about it ahead of time to remind them.
Lisa: My kids have chores all year long, animal chores, and in the summer they do usually get more responsibility because of baling hay and doing things they don’t always like to do but have to, in taking care of some of the animals. So they definitely have more to do in the summer.
When I work they’re with my husband, and he can’t stand TV, so he’s got them outside doing something. He doesn’t care what they’re doing, as long as they’re not sitting in front of the TV. He keeps them very busy.
Kris: I agree. In the summer there’s more time and more opportunity to teach them the responsibility of chores, and they have to follow through too. Sometimes during the school year it gets so busy and there isn’t time for the chores. There’s school and homework and bed and there’s just not as much time for it. But in the summer there is more time for teaching them why there are chores too.
Lisa: We’re all in the house, we’re all part of the family, we all have to contribute.
Kris: They’re there more and it’s messy more and they can see they’re contributing to that mess so they have to help out with that more too.
Lynette: I’m one to frequent the library and on a rainy day I’m not afraid to put on a good video. Since I’m the one who chooses them I know what they’re seeing, especially for the little ones. I just got the older ones hooked on Gilligan’s Island.
Also for the little ones I will stash away toys in the basement and take out new ones every once in a while and that’s fun for them. I’m big on art, so coloring books, paper, felt — anything I can think of, even contact paper. I’ll cut shapes out of it and take the backing off and that’ll be stickers for them. You name it. They make their own books too.
Reading stories to them is fun. A good five of them want to take part, so there’s a lot of elbow bumping but we get through some stories. They like it when I change voices up for each character. Their teachers say that they do that at school too and they’ve been amazed by that. I’ve done that from day one.
On rainy days, I still believe in play dough, even though it is a messy project. We have some play dough toys, but I’ve taken out things from around the house like forks or a colander or cheese shredder. Anything you can think of for them to play with play dough. If I get in there and make a birds nest with eggs, or teach them how to roll out snakes, that just tickles them. Homemade play dough especially is so soft.
Paula: I just miss those days, those younger days. My 13-year-old just had a jar of play dough out the other day while the kids were watching TV together.
Lynette: And who knows with your biological clock ticking if it’s going to be your last little one, so you want to just do it up. We just took out the kitchen set and they pretend they’re baking play dough cookies. It just gets more fun all the time. They have ideas too.
Paula: It’s funny, they get to a certain age it’s no longer an interest. Mine are the oldest on my mom’s side: There are 15 and on my mom’s side and Drew is the oldest at 19, and they go all the way down to 1, so that’s what they do when they get together with them: the music, the art, the dress up.
Kris: And that’s how you see that your kids are good with little kids.
Paula: Yes, they love it. It’s good to see them like that; it brings back all the memories.
GF: Do you have a chance during the summer to get together with relatives very often?
Paula: My girls do a lot of baby-sitting for my sister who has three kids: a 1-year-old; a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. And so we do see them quite a bit. They’re always coming home with those great stories and with the questions the kids ask. We have one weekend every summer where all the siblings get together with all the kids.
Lisa: My brother-in-law came up with the summer plan that was supposed to be kind of a cheap thing to do. Each brother picks a weekend when they are going to have a campout. They’ll set up their tents and have a campfire. And then they’ll pick another weekend at another brother’s house. There are four brothers, so they’re going to have four campouts. He just thought what a cheap way to all get together, and the kids just absolutely love it. The kids in the family range in age from 21 to 1, and they all love each other, and we still get our little kid fix. I thought that was a great idea: it was the uncle who has no kids who came up with that. He loves to be with the kids. It’s cheap. Just bring food to share and camp out.
Paula: That’s a great idea. Then my kids could get their camping fix that they’re missing.
Lisa: I won’t sleep in a tent at this point anymore because I probably couldn’t move in the morning. The stories about what the adults did when they were little kids — the kids love to hear those.
Kris: My father-in-law and mother-in-law are at the stage where they want to get rid of stuff, so they gave us the tent that they had and my kids can’t wait to set it up and have a campfire in the backyard and camp out. One night we had a campfire and we only had so many hotdogs and so we were still hungry. We went in and found pizza that was leftover and we roasted the pizza over the fire. Then there were some baked potatoes … we stuck those on the skewer. We roasted all of our leftovers, it was great. Now that’s the kids’ favorite thing.
Paula: A campfire just brings you together. We probably do that three nights a week in the summer.
Kris: No dishes for us.
Paula: Yeah, that’s great.
Lynette: I have to be a little downer about campfires. I love campfires, but I don’t like the smell of smoke on the kids so they always need a bath afterwards. It is bittersweet. Some moms don’t mind it and let the kids go in their bed.
Paula: I never could either. The kids always had to have a bath. We used to camp when our kids were your kids’ ages. When they were real little we camped every other weekend and it was the same thing, and that is hard.
Kris: Now as they’re older they can go and shower on their own and that makes it so much better.
GF: And early morning campfires just aren’t the same.
Cindy: We love campfires for the s’mores. I think that it’s the only time we let Jordan, who would do anything for a piece of chocolate, have some. If you don’t hide the Hershey candy bars or a piece of chocolate, he’ll locate it. He’s always excited, saying, “We’ve gotta have chocolate, right? We’ve gotta have chocolate.”
GF: These are really a lot of good ideas for keeping kids of all ages busy and entertained. Do you find that it’s easier or more difficult to keep kids entertained as they get older?
Cindy: It’s kind of a little bit of both. The hardest thing is that Chelsie is off babysitting on her own three days a week, so it’s fun to see her grow up and use the abilities that she has to be a little bit more of a mother hen. She likes to do the art things with the kids, go to the library with the kids she baby-sits. They have story time down there and I know she does that.
The gal that she baby-sits for has done a great job of teaching her how to make a schedule for the kids that I’ve used for the week. Sometimes if you don’t leave a list, they just don’t know what there is to do, you know?
Josh is very proud that at least once this summer he slept in until 1:22 in the afternoon. Everybody else just can’t believe he could waste the day in bed like that. He thought it was a dream come true.
Jordan is up at the crack of dawn and cannot wait to hear the birds and see the sun and he wants to go fishing. It’s 8:15 and he wants to do the next thing at 8:25 and after that we must be doing something else. He likes to go a lot so sometimes it’s hard to slow him down. There’s an age variable in there where the older ones sometimes say, “Don’t you ever just sit still? I don’t want to go outside right now.”
They’ve definitely learned a lot of compromise this summer and that’s not always easy at 13. They battle against each other at ages 13 and 17. They both give a little bit and you always hope in the end that they have both equally gave.
Paula: I think that it’s easier in many respects for my kids’ ages to pretty much go on their own or Drew can get them where they need to go. What I find is I’d like more family activities, so finding more things or even more time that we can do things together like camping or hiking. Thank God for the campfire because I know that even if Drew gets home at 10:00 at night and we’re out there, he’ll come out and sit with us. For me, finding that family time as the kids get older, the activities you can do together gets harder.
Lynette: I think, too, that to our family, prayer time is important and you can get very busy. Even though our kids aren’t involved in a lot of sports, they’re still busy and so we found that if we set Monday nights aside we have dinner together, then we do some family faith formation at home, and then it’s yard night. That’ll be the night to mow the lawn and everybody has to pick up the sticks first and weed. It’s a whole night together. The kids love it. Even though they might be grumbling, you know that it’s going to be a memory for them.
So, I think like we’ve all said, we enjoy the simple things in life and we’ve taught our kids those simple things. I think kids generally know that there’s going to be family time and they kind of wait for that. If there’s nothing going on they’ll either go to the neighbors and have something to do there or they’ll come up with something on their own and find something to do, just knowing that around the corner there’s going to be a family time — because that’s what we’re about, family time. I think there’s a certain contentedness in that for children. A certain simplicity that they need not to grow up too fast, to just be kids.
GF: Do all of you try to get some family time in most days?
Lisa: Except for the one night that I work, we always eat together. Everybody comes and nobody can say, “I’m watching something,” or whatever. We all eat at the same time. And that is kind of our time to talk and see what’s going on and most of the time you can’t even get in a word, because everybody’s got a story. But it’s fun.
And we do have a lot of family time because farming is family business. They’re working with each other all the time. We’re all doing stuff.
Cindy: We’ve all caught some Twins games together this year. Usually my husband and I or my husband and one of the kids will go and it is wonderful. Hit some random games and spend some quality time with Dad. It is one of my favorite date days with my husband of 15 years. We generally don’t make enough time to be alone and do things like that because we are just so busy with the kids, because it does keep them on the straight and narrow. It’s hard to pull back too much…at 13, if Chelsie still wants to play hockey, we’ll get her there. But it is a great facility up there. You can go and spend absolutely no money (while there). You can buy a $10 ticket and have a great seat. You can go and buy a standing ticket and have a great seat. You can take water and peanuts in with you, so you can do it with no cost whatsoever. Or you can go there and eat a nice meal. We’ve had some great times up there this summer, and I know that’s going to be a part of our summers in the future.
Lynette: I love going to garage sales, finding creative things. Sometimes I’ll take the kids with me, the little ones, and they’ll get to choose one favorite toy or stuffed animal and it is just a treasure for them.
Kris: We definitely eat our meals together to and sometimes now with the days being longer in the summer, we’ll go out to the trail afterwards and the kids will ride their bikes on the trail. They’re so much faster than us, but we’re together as a family and it gives John and I chance to talk too. They’ll circle back around and be with us for a while then take off together, so it serves a double purpose: We’re all together but we also get a chance to talk for a while too. Couple time and family time all in one. They keep wondering why I don’t want a bike … I like talking with their dad.
Lisa: When I think of just family time I like that, but one-on-one time too. The other day I had errands to run and it was rainy out and I asked my oldest son who is 17 and just graduated from high school as kind of a joke, “So I suppose you want to run errands with me,” and he said, “Sure.” So here’s my son — it just made me feel good — he came with me. It is fun to do something one-on-one and then just he and I stopped and got something to eat.
Paula: That is nice. Lauren has just gotten into baking. Being a pastry chef is all she’s talking about, so even though I’m not a kitchen person or a very good cook, it’s been really fun learning things. She’s got all these pastry books and cookbooks and she really wants to do that, so that’s our new one-on-one time. It’s really enjoyable and I’m even actually learning to like to be in the kitchen.
GF: It’s amazing what you learn from your children.
Paula: It is.
Lynette: It’s neat to see things through your children’s eyes because then you’re a child again and there’s a lot of joy in that. Having a large family, there are certain personalities that are going to clash. Sometimes I’ll pair two kids together that don’t normally get along all that well and give them $3 or $4 and say, “You guys go to Kwik Trip and get a snack.” So they’ll end up walking together and end up maybe getting along a little better.
On the husband time, your kids won’t truly be happy unless you and your husband are happy. Sadly, I know some families where the kids come first and the families are going crazy with sports schedules and two-a-day practices and it’s all about the kids, but if it’s not about the husband and wife first, it’s not going to filter down to the kids. There’s not going to be that happiness and contentedness and that’s what those kids want. And it’s not so much what they’re doing — they do want to be with Mom and Dad and they want to see Mom and Dad happy, and that’s where the memories come.
I remember a story where a father was trying to help his son learn some poem or concept for school. He knew that his son loved playing catch, so they learned the concept while playing catch and the son totally got it. As opposed to sitting at a table and drilling, it’s that time together, and that son remembered that later in life. It kind of gives me goose bumps.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, they want you. My little Sarah, she’s a cuddler and just today I really didn’t give her the time. I knew I just had to bend down and say, “Sarah, give Mommy a hug.” And I hugged her for a long time and she was content. And then she went her merry little way singing her little song. It doesn’t take much.
Paula: Even at 13 and 15 my girls think that.
Lynette: As mothers if you’ve ever seen the book, “I Love You Forever” — oh my gosh, I cry every time I read it. It tells the stages of the mother and her little boy. He grows up and she still will creep up at night to his bed and make sure he’s sleeping and will cuddle him and even as a big teenager she will still hold him on his lap. I looked at my son the other day and he was having an off day, the 14-year-old, and right away my mind went to the page in the book where he’s a teenager, and sometimes you think your child belongs in a zoo.
There are some tough times and there’s forgiveness, like never be too proud to tell your children “I’m sorry for losing my patience with you,” “I’m sorry I yelled,” and “Can you forgive Mommy?” Even if they’re 3 years old. Their spirits just light up. “I forgive you” — that’s a huge one when I learned that. I never really grew up with “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you.” It was holding a grudge and when you started talking again you knew you were friends. But it’s huge. That’s a huge factor.
GF: Any other thoughts on keeping kids entertained?
Lynette: Maybe it’s because I have so many kids that I have so many ideas, but I think baking, letting kids take turns helping you make cookies. It takes twice as long and it’s twice the mess. I thought my two older girls would never learn to cook because I always dreaded the mess and didn’t like my oven to be on that long. The big cookie dough balls would be next to a real tiny one knowing that the little one would burn and the big one would be raw and I didn’t want to fix it, because I wanted them to know that they did it and wanted to give them confidence.
But that’s fun too, just letting them cook. My daughters will make a meal, they ask if they can make dinner. “Sure. Go for it.”
Cindy: I took the boys berry picking last week. In a half an hour we picked two flats of strawberries and they were so proud and Jordan couldn’t pick fast enough and everybody had to find the biggest strawberry … so it was a lot of memories. I told them not to eat too many berries until we got them home to wash them or their hair would turn red. And they of course believed me.
Lynette: It’s really involving them. Like planting the garden — I really wanted to do it, I really wanted to keep the rows straight. But I let Daniel help me, the 9-year-old. When I look at that garden now, I’m so glad I did that. He can be proud of that. You have to let go and not be so rigid.
Paula: I’m all for letting go in the kitchen.
Lynette: Our son John Paul did an online school program this year so they sent us a computer, which we’ve now sent back. Otherwise we don’t have a computer at home. They haven’t really complained about it, but you have to go through a withdrawal period for a while.
Paula: It’s actually been really nice at our house because my laptop is broken and before it was set to check my emails for work. The girls have not said boo about it. Out of sight, out of mind. They find other things to occupy their time.
Lynette: Yes, I love it because the little ones don’t really have the concept of Monday is computer day and Friday, so they’re always asking and oh, just to not be asked. It’s wonderful.
Cindy: My oldest doesn’t ask very often or even attempt to get on. She’ll maybe check her Facebook and see if anybody is sitting at home with idle time themselves.
My middle one doesn’t mess with things like Facebook, but he’ll check You Tube and things like that.
The younger one is 7 and doesn’t really have much interest in it. He’d rather go change into 10 hockey jerseys and pretend like he’s been traded to 10 hockey teams for the day or go play catch with a ball that doesn’t even exist. I can’t tell you how many home runs he’s hit, against everybody. He’s got a great imagination in that way.
We’ve had the same computer for seven years and it’s not like it’s quick as a nickel but it sits there and we don’t have to limit too much because they’re all pretty responsible with it. It’s nice to have for homework. We go to public schools and they don’t get a computer, but it is surprising how much they do expect them to do online at home. They really force them to Google this or check out that or you can get on there and check grades or the parent portals that they have. They encourage it as much as anything else, so it’s hard to limit it.
Lynette: There’s a lot of good about it. I’m not a computer person, but when I was in high school in 12th grade, computers just came into our school and our teacher was very rigid and we didn’t learn a whole lot. After graduation I was into word processing so you just get to know your computer and your system, but I know that when I do get on the computer at night after my kids have gone to bed, I’ll look at my watch and I’ll realize I’ve been on for an hour and a half and wonder, how did that happen? And I’m not even that interested in it, so I know it can take your time, although it’s a great technology too.
Paula: I think we’re saying it’s an activity we’d like our kids to avoid.
Kris: That’s what I spend time doing on a rainy day, making sure that time is limited. Sophie will just be getting a laptop next year. I have heard of a family who will pick a time at night that is a reasonable time for their child to be done with homework and the laptop gets recharged in the parents bedroom, so they know that their child cannot be on it. I think we’ll adopt that policy.
Paula: Drew was always very responsible with it and the girls are pretty responsible too. But I think if you’re on top of it, it is a non-issue.