DEFCON status

I decided that I needed to implement a system for gauging the urgency of issues/requests around our house. I was tired of dealing with every issue as a crisis requiring screaming and immediate intervention. Seriously, is it necessary to interrupt me while I'm in the middle of a phone call in order to tell me how you want to spend your Christmas money when we next go to Target? That's not exactly an emergency, in my mind. However, I can understand that there are times when excitement and urgency are natural. We just need a classification system to help define it. So here is our new household threat monitoring system in a nutshell:

• DEFCON 1: GET EXCITED, take injured party to the hospital, the house is on fire, etc. etc. screaming is understandable but still not OK. mortal peril. interrupting Mom is expected.
  
• DEFCON 2: get excited, someone is bleeding or about to fall off the roof--immediate assistance is required but no lives are in danger. screaming is not necessary, but exclamations are OK. interrupting Mom is acceptable.
  
• DEFCON 3: no need to get excited. help is needed, but not urgently. no one is injured and no one is in peril. buttons can wait 30 seconds and help will be given as needed. please remain calm and use statements or requests, no exclamations or commands. interrupting Mom is not acceptable.
  

Surprisingly, the children have taken to it pretty well. We did have a lengthy discussion one night, analyzing different situations and discussing what category they fell into. At first they thought Elanor's staples were a DEFCON 2, but I explained that an ER visit actually merited a DEFCON 1 status. They have already realized that most of their issues actually fall into DEFCON 3 and that they need to react accordingly. I've even been able to derail some hysterics simply by saying, "Wait, wait! Is this a 1, 2, or 3?" Not a lot has changed, but so far it has served to give them a moment to stop and really analyze what's going on and what needs to be done.

I'm telling you, give me a year to flesh this out and I'll have my book deal.