Frustration

There are few things more pathetic, or more annoying, than hearing a three-year-old scream at her Duplos, "That's not what I wanted!"

Chloë does this a lot these days. "Stay out of my face, hair!" she says at night. "Don't fall, blocks!" she says when making a tower. Then of course there's the arguments with Eric and me. "I'm not going to put on a show for you," Eric will say, and her angry response is, "Yes you are!"

Which is not to say she's angry all the time. But when she is, she gets very vocal about it.

And Maia, faithful follower of her sister, is starting to pitch fits of her own. These usually take the form of repetitive howling of "Nooooo!" no matter what we say to her, running away, and knocking things over. She's hard to calm down when she gets this way. A few months ago I would have said categorically that she's much more temperamental than her sister, but now that Chloë is producing fireworks of her own on a regular basis I can't be so positive. One thing's for sure, though; we always know where we stand with them.