Literal

We have a new "policy" in our family.  We have never really let our kids leave church to go to the bathroom or get a drink.  Just opens a door to a lot of chaos.  Now that we have church at noon, it's been a little harder to enforce that rule.  First, Katy has some potty issues so I hate to not let her go if she says she needs to and second, who knows what they've had to drink all morning that's finally ran through them.  It started to be an issue so I told them both that if they left to go potty, they would have a 5 minute timeout when we get home.  Today, before it started, I asked them both to go potty and reminded them of our new policy.  They both said they were good.

Well we weren't but half way in when Katy says she needs to go.  I tell her fine, but she has a timeout.  She starts to cry.  I shush her and remind her of our agreement and that I asked her to go 20 min beforehand.  She didn't want to go because she didn't want a timeout, but decided it was worth it so she went.  As soon as she got back, she asked if she still had a timeout.  I told her she did and she began to cry again.

Much later, Bo says he has to go.  I also remind him of the new policy and he says that's fine.  He stays gone for a really long time.  Longer than it takes to go potty.  I assumed he had to.. ya know.. #2 since he'd been gone so long and then understood why he was willing to take the timeout.  When he finally got back, I asked why he had taken so long.  He looked at me a bit surprised and said "because you said I had to have a 5 minute timeout.  I counted to 60 five times!".  I have to give him Kudos for being obedient, but I'm not really thinking an extra 5 minutes NOT in church counts as a punishment.