use POSIX qw/WNOHANG/;

## ...

$SIG{ CHLD } = sub {
		while ( waitpid( -1, WNOHANG ) > 0 )
		{ ## what to do, empty here }
	};

## fork down here


##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use POSIX qw/WNOHANG/;

my $time	= 5;

$SIG{ CHLD } = sub {
		while ( ( my $x = waitpid( -1, WNOHANG ) ) > 0 )
		{ print "\tprocess '$x' got reaped.\n" }
	};

my @toDoList = (
	'ls -la',	'echo Yay!',
	'date',		'perl -V',
);

foreach my $doIt ( @toDoList ) {

	my $child = fork();
	defined $child or die "Can not fork: $!";

	if ( $child > 0 ) {	## parent

		print "Parent of $child sleeping for $time seconds . . .\n";
		sleep( $time );
		print "Parent of $child done sleeping!\n";

	} else {		## child

		print "Child, going to do '$doIt'\n";
		exec( "$doIt && echo '** Finished \"$doIt\" **'" );

	}

}

print "\nDone.\n\n";
exit(0);