The kid sits in timeout in her room while I sweep up the glass. I’ve never given her a timeout before, so neither of us seems to be one hundred percent certain how it works. But after she stomped into her room, I hadn’t wanted her to have the last word, so I knocked and said, “Timeout activated!” An hour later, when I knock on the door again, the kid says, “Excuse me, your timeout isn’t up yet, Mommy.” “It seems there’s been some miscommunication,” I say. “You haven’t had enough time to think about what you’ve done,” she says, but as she says it, I can hear her creeping closer to the door, at
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