Every family has one.

The difficult child. Actually, most of our children have gone through a difficult stage, lasting for various lengths of time. Elena is our current record holder, having been extremely difficult for most of her 5 years of life. Renee is, apparently, trying to out-do her. Here are some conversations from the last few hours:

Renee: I need a snack

Me: Dinner is in an hour, I'm not handing out snacks.

Renee: But I'm so, so hungry. I need a snack. And not something healthy. And real food, no fake food. And no fruit.

Me: Well, what do you want?

Renee: Something snacky.

Me: Good grief.

A little while later at dinner:

Renee (eating banana bread with nuts): I hate nuts.

Me: But you just ate a crunchy peanut butter sandwich. Those crunchy things were nuts, and you liked them. And you eat nuts from the jar, and on your oatmeal. You like nuts.

Renee: Well, I hate these nuts. And I'm not eating them.

Me: Good grief.

Of course, this is but a small sample if the difficult-ness of this child. She spends her days finding new ways to be difficult, and she is getting very good at it.