If I have to stop this car...

So, there are certain things that, as a kid, you just can't wait to be able to someday say to your own children. And then you actually have children and you realize that you never want to hear yourself actually say those things because that would mean – God forbid! – that you have become just like your own parents. You know what I'm talking about:

"When you're the mom, then you get to decide."

"Don't stand with the door open. You're letting all the warm air out!"

"Don't dirty another shirt! Do you think I do laundry for my health?!"

"If I have to stop this car, you are in big trouble mister!"

And of course, the ever popular:
"Just wait until your father gets home!"

In the last month or so, I have suddenly found myself saying those things! I'd like to blame it on the fact that my kids are getting older and are the ones driving me to say them, but somehow I have this feeling that I am just genetically programmed to become the people that raised me. Which, I should point out, bothers me less than I thought it would.

I have always known that I am like each of my parents in certain ways. I just never thought I would actually repeat - verbatim - the very things they used to say to me. Parenting is funny that way. I think it's God's little way of making sure that even though you may not have appreciated all that your parents did for you when you were young, or understood that they only had your best interests at heart, you definitely get it now.

And with any luck, someday my children will get it too. :)