Last year and this year, we've let my daughter stay home one day a week from summer camp provided she doesn't interfere with my work (well, more than making her lunch and things that can't be avoided). It saves us around $130 a month and it lets her get bored. Remember getting bored? And having to do something about it yourself? I think it's very important for her to learn to putter around the house so she doesn't follow her roommates around like a sad puppy in college.

On most summer Mondays, she watches way too much television, doesn't get dressed until five pm and folds her own laundry. I don't worry too much about her spending a day watching television, because it's one day and then she goes to camp the rest of the week and swims and bowls and makes stuff out of beads and does science experiments. Plus, watching TV all morning on a lazy summer day is fun. I'm jealous. 

And every once in a while, I walk into the living room to check on her and find an intricately constructed story hour so cute I can't even believe it.

She has way too many stuffed animals, too. But I don't care any more. Life's short.