PP

We have a spray bottle beneath our sink. The bottle contains a water/amonia mixture and has "PP Cleaner" written on it with a black Sharpie.

Tom made the mixture and labeled the bottle.

Obviously, we use this for cleaning up the spots Olivia leaves several times a day when she's too busy, lazy, bored, to come tell us she needs to pee.

I say that O is potty trained. But I wonder if I can say that will honesty when we typically have at least two accidents a day.

Except when we're out in public.

Then, she tells us every single time when she has to pee.

Well, she did have an accident at gymnastics three weeks ago, but that was an odd occurance.

So we know she can both hold it AND tell us when she has to go.

Which makes the accidents that happen at home that much more frustrating.

Last weekend, she peed on the new-to-us couch twice in the span of ten minutes.

She ended up in time-out.

After four minutes in a chair, not caring a bit that she was in that chair, I asked Olivia why she was in timeout.

She gave a pttthhhhht.

I gave her two more minutes of timeout and asked her again why she was there.

She said she was sorry.

I asked her why she was sorry. She repeated the raspberry.

I ignored her for another two minutes as she continued to sit in the chair.

Again, I asked her why she was in timeout and why she was sorry.

She mumbled, "Because I peed."

I asked her where she'd peed.

"On the couch."

I asked, "And where are you supposed to pee?"

"In the potty."

She was released from timeout.

And for the rest of the day, she told me when she had to pee. Success!!!

I think this was the first time she connected her actions (the peeing) to my frustration and her having to go to timeout.

My mom reports this week has been much better, pee-wise.

So...conclusion? Timeout works for my kid as long as I make sure she gets why she's even in timeout.

Yeah, even I can learn something every day.