>They Call It Sass in the South

A strange thing happened when my 14 and 16-year-old stepdaughters started school this week. They left in the morning teenagers and returned home adults. At least, that’s what they wanted us to believe.

Somehow in the eight hours they were away from us, both girls had received heaping helpings of Attitude.

I swear, the teachers hand out Attitude along with their syllabi, because this happens every stinking year. By yesterday afternoon, the girls who spent all summer watching Grey’s Anatomy with me and graciously babysitting their younger brother and sister so that I could get some writing done had disappeared. In their place were two pouting young women with slumped shoulders and a frightening amount of eye makeup. Inside jokes between them abounded. Basic questions from their dad and me were met with shrugs and eye rolls.

I’m all for giving teenagers their space, but this? Oh hell, no.

By nightfall, their new Attitudes had earned them a rare weekend grounding and our first Big Family Talk of the school year. I have no doubt that the situation will improve and the Attitudes will weaken, but try if you will to picture me attempting to have a Serious Talk with my teenage stepdaughters while breastfeeding my five-month-old son and pausing every few minutes to listen to the latest bit of nonsense my three-year-old absolutely had to tell me at that very moment. I felt lame and ridiculous.

“Are we crazy?” I asked my husband after our teenagers had shuffled off to bed. “Are we really trying to raise two teenagers and two small children at the same time? What were we thinking?!”

Exhausted and with only a five a-m wake-up call from the baby to look forward to, our eyes met and we laughed. And that’s when I knew that despite the insanity of that moment, of that day, this season of our lives will pass with a speed that later will make both our hearts ache, and it’s all going to turn out okay.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.