2 And Type A

What can I say...

He's my child.

Over the past few weeks we've noticed behavior that probably, usually, isn't exhibited by a two year old. B has definitely shown us some Type A personality tendencies. For example:

His obsession with things that are "broken" and his intense need to "fix" them. And I use the terms loosely.

It always happens with his food. He'll eat a piece a toast, or a banana or a piece of cheese down the middle and when it breaks in half, he gets very upset and refuses to eat it until one of us fixes it. He trys for several minutes to stick the two pieces back together and when that doesn't work, he brings it to me or Buck, nearly in tears and says, "Broken, Mommy. Fix it!". Once it's taken away and just one of the two pieces brought back, he (assuming we fixed it) is happy and resumes eating. We frequently go through the same scenario with chalk and crayons. Once they're "fixed", he resumes his art project.

The other day we were cleaning out closets to make room for Noah's things. We were almost finished with the last closet. Brady enters the room and begins his inspection of our work. He's scanning the bottom of the closet, presumably scouring for something to get into, when he stops cold in his tracks. He forcefully points his chubby little finger at something and launches into a babbling tirade in which neither of us has any clue what he's talking about. After a few minutes of me shaking my head and saying, "I know, B" (my standard answer when I have no clue), he grabs my hand and pulls me over to the closet. "BROKEN! FIX IT!". I still have no clue. "Nothing's broken, B. It's fine.". "BROKEN! FIX IT!". After repeating several times, he goes to the shoe rack and grabs Buck's boots, which are sitting in front of the shoe rack. "FIX IT!!", he shouts, this time with desperation in his little voice. I still don't get it. The boots are brand new...they're not broken. Finally, he picks one up and starts trying to shove it onto the shoe rack. Now I get it! He was upset because the boots were in front of the shoe rack and not on the rack like the other shoes. I help him sit the boots on top of the rack. He looks up at me with smiling blue eyes and says, "Thank you, Mommy" and walks away.

They don't use rods to hang drapes and curtains here in Germany. Instead you hang them using little clips suspended from a track. Often the fabric will slip loose from one of the clips.

We were playing in our bed a few days ago when suddenly Brady again forcefully points his finger toward the ceiling and shouts...you guessed it..."Broken!" Buck replies, "Nope the ceiling isn't broken. It's fine." Again, "Broken!" This time, I knew exactly what B was talking about. It had been driving me nuts for days, but I can't reach the track at the top of 11 foot ceilings, in order to fix it. One of the clips in the middle of the curtain had come loose. "You've got to kidding me.", Buck says as he looks at me in disbelief. "Try it.", I say. He gets up, puts the clip back on the curtain..."Thank you, Daddy!", says the smiling boy.

And finally, he organizes and groups things according to type.

We were putting something together (I can't remember what it was) that required the tool box. B loves tools, particularly screw drivers. (And why wouldn't he love tools...they fix things!) He took all of the screw drivers out of the box and after about 30 minutes of taking them over to the radiator, sticking them in top, pulling them out and laying them on the floor, we noticed something. He was lining them up according to handle type! All of the grey and yellow ones together, the red and black in their own group and the various handled ones individually in a neat little row.

It's almost scary.

I'll admit that I have OCD tendencies and that I'm totally Type A. Okay, maybe even A+ as Buck says, but I don't think I was that way at 2. I think mine started in elementary school. I can remember in first grade crying and asking my teacher to let me stay in at recess to re-do work that I had "messed-up". It wasn't good enough if I had one color mark outside the lines, if I had too many eraser marks...I'm still that way. I can't leave something alone until it's perfect. Even if that means having to do it 101 times. I hate clutter and things that don't have a place. I organize my "junk" drawers, my closet by color and type, and even my dishwasher. I clean the house and two days later feel that it's so dirty I can't breathe in here. I struggle with keeping the bookshelves perfectly in line and the toys that are stuck in a corner in the living room. (I really can't wait to move to get that play room!) I'm getting better about that, but some days, I just can't take it! I hate group projects or having to depend on someone to do something that my name is attached to. I can't delegate responsibility. I'm overly critical...especially of myself. It's a bit of a sickness really.

I hope for B's sake, that it's just a phase and he outgrows it. But, he's probably not going to. I think he's probably just genetically hard wired that way. I got it from my mom, who got it from her father. My sister is the same way.

As his mom, I will have to find ways to re-assure him that he doesn't have to be perfect...that I don't expect him to be perfect...just to be his best. I don't want his childhood to be stressful, just fun. I want him to enjoy making messes and not want to clean them up. I want him to think outside the box, to color outside the lines. I'm just not sure how to make him do it. After all, they learn from what you do, not what you say, and I don't know to change who God created me to be. I don't know how to relax and let the mess sit there.

And, after writing and reading this post, I realize that I have A LOT of work to do to get myself to that point. But, for the sanity of my children, I'm willing to put in the time.

(And if I've mispelled a bunch, and I'm sure I have, forgive me...my spell checker won't work! And in the spirit of not being so much of a perfectionist, I won't go back and re-read this at least 10 times to make sure it's perfect.)