[speaker002:] uh do you have a couple of children
[speaker001:] I have one she's twenty months old
[speaker002:] uh-huh oh boy
[speaker001:] how many do you have how many do you have
[speaker002:] at least you're sleeping I have uh two boys one's eleven and one's fourteen
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] I imagine the activities we uh encounter with our kids are quite different at this point
[speaker001:] they probably are but maybe you can give me some insight and I can remind you of the old times huh
[speaker002:] oh I remember them fondly it seems like the the baby like young children uh destroy your sleep and older children destroy your life
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and I don't really mean that it
[speaker001:] well I've heard that it only gets worse my husband and I sit around thinking gosh you know what are we going to do when she starts going out and having friends and going to school and getting exposed to all the other things out there
[speaker002:] oh I think the biggest problem is that you just have no training for this
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and you really have to wing it you know as you go
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] but I I remember fondly having the small ones they they seemed real happy and it was so easy to solve their problems and as they get older it just seems that everything is more serious and and
[speaker001:] complicated
[speaker002:] it's more complicated it's emotional it's not a matter of giving them a lollipop anymore it it just gets harder
[speaker001:] yes
[speaker002:] but um what we've done and you might want to do as you know as time flies by is I'm remarried and my husband never had any kids
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] so we were trying to figure out how um how we would make this turnover as smooth as possible and we came up with what we call the family meeting
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and once a week we get together and this is a chance when the kids can say whatever they want without us getting insulted about it
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and we have sort of an agenda that's like good news this week bad news this week uh suggestions any new business any uh
[speaker001:] hm
[speaker002:] any questions questions any anything you know and we
[speaker001:] how long does that last how long does your meeting last
[speaker002:] well it it changes it could be a quiet week it could be the kind of thing where kids want to go do something else so it goes pretty quick at the end is allowance so they have to make it through you know collect
[speaker001:] that sounds like a good theory or a good way to do it
[speaker002:] well you know we we actually sit and talk to each other once a week at least you know not that we don't all the time
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] but it it it works out nicely and I don't know you know I think I'd do that even if I wasn't remarried if I had thought about it
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and you know we plan also plan a family activity because people are coming and going and it's hard to be all together to do something so
[speaker001:] uh-huh what kind of things do you do on the family activities
[speaker002:] well it could be a game of Scrabble and or it could be you know reading a book out loud or making up a story and passing it around the table you know one sentence to each person
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and um it's it's not something that's impossible I mean the kids will usually want to go to a game park or something you know we can't do that you know we try to keep it real
[speaker001:] yeah right it's getting quite expensive to do that these days
[speaker002:] oh please yeah that another thing that comes up with us is family vacation
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] we just kind of knock our heads we don't know how to make that right it seems as if we do what they want uh we marathoned a trip in California we stayed with some relatives for awhile and then we went to Sea World and we went to Disneyland and we we went to every kid thing
[speaker001:] did you drive there
[speaker002:] uh no we we flew to California and we stayed free at my aunt's house so that gave us a base in San Diego
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] and we saw Sea World and the zoo and this and that and our lives were sort of normal because we you know it was someone else's house so we made sure we had dinner at dinnertime and that kind of thing then we drove a bit further and when we were on our own it just kind of fell apart because we'd stay late at the parks and I didn't enjoy it after awhile you know once is you know it's interesting but it's really not my cup of tea and family vacations are kind of difficult
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know sharing a room with the kids is not much of a vacation once they're old enough to know the difference
[speaker001:] true true
[speaker002:] so
[speaker001:] yeah my husband wants to go on a family vacation we're on the east coast like you and he wants to go out to uh the Grand Canyon and do that sort of thing when Helen gets a little older but it's hard to tell I at twenty months old he's he wants take her to the zoo and that sort of thing but I'm not sure if she's ready for any of that if she's you know if it could hold her interest
[speaker002:] hm
[speaker001:] so we don't really have anything any kind of family activities to do we basically just sit around the house and she runs from one to the other and we read to her that's something she enjoys
[speaker002:] well I guess the playgrounds used to be hot when the kids were little
[speaker001:] yeah there's not many of them out there though like was when I was young
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] I mean there was a playground just about in every neighborhood but I don't even know where one is around here anymore
[speaker002:] there might be some at the schools
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know that you can use when it's an off time you know on a weekend or something
[speaker001:] yeah that's a good idea
[speaker002:] and a lot of if you have a a YMCA or something they have kind of a tot programs where they have little exercise class for kids her age and all kinds of things
[speaker001:] uh-huh yeah hm
[speaker002:] what help yeah go ahead
[speaker001:] probably probably be very hard to be the instructor twenty months old
[speaker002:] huh yeah but that's not your problem that's the fun of it you