Well excuuuusssse me!

An area that I need to improve upon is patience. I've always thought I was a pretty patient person. Then my kids learned to talk back and developed a little bit of attitude and my patience went out the window. Any hint of attitude and I lose it. I won't stand for it. A mom friend of mine says that her kids are afraid of her. They don't give her attitude and in that remote chance that they do give her a little twinge of attitude or talk back, she gives them "the look" and the attitude flies out the window. My kids aren't scared of me. I try and give them a timeout and they just give me more attitude and yell more. Granted they are on their way to their bedroom, but they are still yelling. I don't think there's any chance my kids will ever be scared of me. That ship has sailed. I need to have various levels of the attitude that I will accept. Seven-year-olds these days are like 12-year-olds and unless my kids are cursing at me (that's not gonna happen), I have to give in a little. Plus, a lot of the blame goes back on me. I am a very sarcastic person and a 7-year-old can't quite comprehend that. She's just giving me the tone of voice that I give her and Daddy all the time. Sarcasm just comes out a lot different from her than it does from me. When I hear other kids Diana's age talk, they talk to their parents the same, if not worse, than she talks to me. I breathe a sigh of relief, briefly, that I am not the only one who deals with this attitude. I guess what it comes down to is as long as she doesn't give this attitude to other adults and her teachers, I'm OK.