Life With Lemons

Problem: Zach's timeouts are only supposed to last a minute or two, but I kept losing track of time. Sometimes he would even fall asleep before I remembered he was waiting.

Solution: I bought a kitchen timer. It happens to be shaped like a lemon. I set it for a minute and it rings loudly when the time is up. Zach doesn't fall asleep.

Problem: Kids love the lemon timer. All kids. One day we took it to the park and everyone ended up playing games with the lemon...ignoring the play equipment!

Here's when I knew we had a problem:

One day Katelyn came up to me with the lemon in hand asking, "Mom, can I pleeeeeeeease have a Time Out!?"

I smiled at her, surprised, and told her, "No. You only get time outs when you do something wrong."

"Oh," she said. Then she looked up at me sheepishly and half-heartedly hit me on the leg.

This time I laughed. "Okay, go have a time out."

"Thanks, mom. Don't forget the lemon timer!" she called, as she ran off to her bedroom.

Hmmm...I think my lemony solution has become an even bigger problem.