I have come to the conclusion children must meet a cry quota everyday or their little heads will explode. Kids must relieve the pressure on their tear ducts by boo-hooing several times a day, or those tear ducts will swell up like water balloons attached to a garden hose. At least this is what I keep telling myself so I'll have some understanding of the mindset of children, especially my children.

The quota appears to significantly decrease as the child grows older. However, some kids are apparently born with higher quotas than others. My eight-year-old daughter came into this world screaming like Janet Leigh in the movie Psycho, but she has matured and only seems to cry when she's extremely tired, or when her little brother kicks her in the shin.

My six-year-old daughter fooled her mother and me into thinking she wasn't going to be a crier. For the first two days of her life, she hardly made a sound, then came the third day and the levee broke. She reserved her most potent cries for me, but as she has grown older the cries are now generally reserved for hurt feelings, and when her little brother kicks her in the shin. Which brings us to the little brother, otherwise known as my three-year-old son.

We're still waiting for his quota to shrink. I've heard this about third children from other long-suffering parents. I originally chalked that notion up to the fact that by the time moms and dads have a third child, they're so warn out from the previous two experiences that any amount of crying seems excessive.

Not true.

While a certain level of intolerance exists in third time parents, I have scientific evidence to prove third children are biologically and genetically proned to turn on the faucets more often than their older siblings did. OK, maybe my evidence has more to do with the bags under my eyes and the ringing in my ears than it has to do with any controlled experiment, but I'm pretty confident I'm on to something here.

My son is physically incapable of going through a day without crying. Some days he gets the tears out of the way as he crawls out of bed in the morning, and some days he waits until it's time to crawl back in bed. Sometimes he just mixes it up throughout the day. The worst is when he's had a fantastic day with no tears.

Why is that?

Because we pat him on the back and pat ourselves on the back thinking our little boy is growing up. We go to sleep smiling only to be awakened at 3 am by a blood-curdling scream. He doesn't know why he's crying. He can offer no explanation, with the possible exception of some nonsense about Curious George, slight toe pain, and a glass of orange juice. My wife and I should know better though. It's the quota.

The poor little guy can only hold it back for so long without serious consequences. I guess we'll just have to be patient and pray the quota starts to shrink...significantly. Until then we'll just hope he doesn't kick anyone outside the family in the shins.

Mike@TheColumbiaStar.com