He is his mama's son

To say that Jake is a little, um, particular would not be an understatement. We noticed quite a while back that he is a little obsessive compulsive about where food items should go on his highchair tray. He likes things in a certain place is all. I completely understand this and am even a little bit proud that he has mastered the idea that EVERYTHING has a place at such a tender age. So I try not to get frustrated when I put his hot dog or cheese in one spot and he looks at me and states emphatically "NO, not there, right THERE!" while pointing at the spot where these items CLEARLY belong.

I'm astounded at his organizational skills and can't wait until he gets bigger and he can help me organize closets and things. It will be such a sweet time of mother/son bonding.

I've also noticed that he's a little ritualistic and again, I think this comes from me. He's got so many years of therapy ahead of him. When we wake up in the morning there is just a certain order to the way things have to go. For example, after screaming "I'M AWAKE!" one or six times until I get myself up to go get him out of bed, the first thing he needs to do is to look out the window to show me where the cars are parked outside. Then, he needs me to turn off his humidifier. Then we have to talk about which animals are awake while we go turn the lizard's cage lights on. Next, after much discussion over whether we need to change his diaper or not we head downstairs to get some chocolate milk and cereal and turn on Elmo while mommy finishes waking up. It's our thing. It's what we do.

Anyhow, imagine my pride last night when upon taking Jake upstairs to go to bed, this is what Mike and I saw.




I couldn't have been happier. Do you see the way the cars and trucks are all lined up? Do all little boys do this? My only concern was that police car that is not completely straight. I almost had to fix it, but then I told myself to get over it. Do you know what Jake did first thing when we got downstairs this morning? He walked over to the door and fixed that police car so it was perfectly straight and lined up with the others. I wanted to cry, I was so proud of him.

Tomorrow, I think I'm going to buy a pack of M&M's and teach him to line them up by colors before eating them. And everyone knows you start with red and save the green and brown ones for last. Right? That's completely normal.