When to cry...

It seems my mouth has gotten me into trouble again... no surprise for those of you who read me regularly. As all mothers and fathers can tell you, when the lights go out at night, or when naptime has just begun each day, there is usally at least one little voice that rings out, "Mommy! I need you!" Most times I show up obligingly, only to find out I've drug my butt out of a workout so that I can break up some drama between the two girls or some such nonsense, and so we've established some simple rules for when the kids can call on us after dark. At first we told them, "Only call us when you really need us!"... of course, that was such a foolishly broad rule that immediately "when you really need us" was expanded to mean when a sock was removed and lost in the covers, or when a toe was bumped on the bedpost. And so we redefined the rules to say, "Only call us when it's an emergency!"
"What's an emergency?"... So we needed to be clearer...
"An emergency is when you are hurt really bad or very sick"
"Ok Mommy"
But again, this was redefined by the kids to mean any time they wanted to imagine up a headache or some such nonexistant illness in order to get us to come in the room. So we again were forced to be even clearer.
Then we heard them repeat our new rule today...
Caleb, on being gently scolded by Ryan about something, began to cry... no, wail, over his hurt feelings. Then Hannah and Sarah appeared to calm him...
"Buddy, don't cry. That's silly to cry about that," Sarah chided.
"Yeah, buddy, you should only cry when you are throwing up, bleeding, or on fire"
Yup, there it was. The reasons we gave the kids why they could call us after bedtime- We're not raising any panty-waists over here ;)