Oh Yeah? Prove it!

In my opinion, when sick or injured, my girlies tend to be over dramatic whiners.  In order to train them to become strong, self sufficient, and less annoying women someday, I abide by a strict code in which I refuse to treat anything as an emergency unless one or all of the following criteria have been met:

1. Breathing is absent
2. There is a wound present that is spurting blood six feet in any direction
3. Death

Anything less than the aforementioned list and I automatically assume my kids are faking discomfort to obtain something from me.  The most common object of their desire is a day off from school in front of the TV.  Given the fact that I am trying to convince my gremlins that I am immortal, all knowing, and kick ass tough,  any instance in which they trick me and gain the upper hand over me, only pushes my goal of complete child domination further away.  

My other motivation for dragging my feet for anything less than a severe cholera outbreak, dismemberment, or plague, is that I detest waiting in the ER and paying my ER copay.  If I wait until one of my lovelies most certainly is NOT faking and may even be on death's door, I may have the option of getting them directly admitted to the hospital and avoid my copay entirely!  Thus, I feel like I've somehow won the insurance lottery, and my girls get the satisfaction of knowing that to excel at something - even at attempting to die from the Hanta Virus- you may as well go big or go home!

For instance, a few years ago we had planned a cave hike and a trip to Shoshone Falls.  Everyone in the family unit knew the agenda, but Kayley, who was 11 at the time, decided to wake up sick.  I suspected appendicitis fairly early, but this kid is a master at tugging my heartstrings, and I refused to give her the upper hand until I knew she was ill.  Off we drove to Twin Falls, and Kayley felt steadily worse.  At one point, she didn't want to get out of the car to eat some E.L. Fudge cookies with me.  At that point, I knew we had a situation on our hands and that my diagnosis of appendicitis was a surety.  We ended up at Bingham Memorial Hospital and after a lifetime of waiting and a battery of tests, the poor little bugger was relieved of her appendix at about 2 AM.  In return for my meticulous planning and my backbone of steel, I not only avoided my ER copay, but I also got to enjoy Shoshone Falls in all its glory instead of canceling for stupid appendicitis!

It's been awhile since any of my spawn  has dared to test my faker radar, but yesterday Lily gave it a go.  She and Bub were playing "The Alligator Game," which is apparently a made up game that consists of nothing except jumping on the bed at 11 PM.  Down Lil fell, blood curdling screaming for five minutes ensued, and though I suspected a broken wrist, she didn't meet the emergency criteria so I put her to bed.  My rationale was that if she hurt bad enough she couldn't sleep, I'd take her in while the Community Care was open.  Alternately, if she continued fussing about it the next morning, I could drive her to my work and have her evaluated for free.

Next morning arrived, whining began anew, and wouldn't you know it, broken it was:

She'll get her hard cast in a few days.  I pointed out to Lily that there's a song all about her troubles.  When I quizzed her about what the Dr. said about jumping on the bed, Bub piped up with, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed!"  That's right!  Don't you forget it!  And no, you can't skip school to watch TV, you're still warm and breathing!