It's time.

It's here. It's time. It has begun. The time is at hand...for my children (specifically Katie Jane and Jay) to be sarcastic, talk back or under their breath and roll their know-it-all eyes at their mother.

I'm sad.

Will and I have already be labeled "up-tight" by a friend of Katie Jane. And actually, I'm not one bit sad about that label. You want up-tight? I'll show you up-tight!!! I know in their age of total knowledge of everything, that it's hard to understand why a parent would not allow certain things and why parents expect certain things from their children. How dare they?

I'm going to do everything in those commercials that demonstrate how to communicate and stay involved in your children's lives say to do.

And I'll do it in a waaay up-tight way, too.

I think the part that makes me the most sad, is that my kids think that I'm out to destroy their lives with up-tight-ness or something. And they think I'm dumb. And stupid. At least that's the vibe I get from all the eye rollage and comments not meant to be heard. Even though I've had 4 kids, I'm just now starting to feel like a parent. Before it was almost like playing house. Cute clothes, cute hair, perfectly decorated bedrooms, they do what I say and go where I tell them to go. Now it's much much harder. I seem to have the WORST taste in clothes. They want to do their own hair (I guess french braiding sometimes looks a little too polygamy-ish) and their bedrooms no longer resemble ANYTHING from the Pottery Barn Kids magazine. It's all stuffed animals and junky nick-nacks all over (which completely DRIVES ME CRAZY), and hanging out with mom just isn't fun anymore. I don't think it ever was in my case, though.

I need to remember how I was when I was their age. I had a MAJOR fascination for the music group Tears for Fears. I bet I had over 100 posters and pictures from magazines pinned -- to my fathers dismay -- to my bedroom wall. I can still remember the names of the cats belonging to Curt Smith -- Treasure, Garp, Ben, Charlie and Emmy...I think, it's been over 30 years you know. Did my parents freak out when I played Def Lepard? Did they tell me to go change my clothes when I went to school in boxing boots, button down shirts past my knees and black stirrup leggings...with black eyeliner?

I'm going to be more patient...but in a patiently up-tight way.