For those of you who’ve know Grace for long enough, you know Grace is an organization and clean freak. Everything in the Universe has to be in certain order — her order. For example, anything with a 90 degree angle MUST line up with perpendicularly with the edge of the table the object is sitting on. If it’s even one degree off, she’ll take the time to realign it no matter how busy she is.
So you can imagine I kind of live in a Cubist household where everything is lined up straight.
Ever since Bryan has become “mobile”, we noticed that he’s taken on this particular habit of Grace’s… at the age of 15 months… Three examples here:
1. Grace taught Bryan to put his toys back to where they belong before we pick him up from his playpen. The other day when I went to pick him up from the playpen, the first thing he did wasn’t putting his hands up, waiting for me to grab him from his underarms. But rather, he immediately started putting all the smaller parts of his toys into this “cooking pan” and even put its lid on. What’s more is, if an angular toy was misaligned in some way, he’d also take the time to put it back “in order” before he even closed the lid (i.e. if a toy was put in there side ways, he’d flip it around to make sure it’s in standing position). NUTS!
2. Bryan crawls all over the place in my work room when he plays. He’d throw things around and crawl to fetch them himself. One time I saw him, god forbid, accidentally bumped my computer bag out of “alignment”. He intuitively reached out his right arm to adjust it so that its back is flushed to the computer on the floor! WHAT THE….
3. The other day a friend from L.A. was in the area with his wife and 13-month-old (whom, by the way, has been WALKING since 12 months). The kid was walking all over the place and kicked the rug hard enough so that one corner was turned. Bryan, who was crawling behind him, immediately made sure the corner was put back in place before he crawled on to his play.
Now that’s discipline.
Plans are in the works to turn him into a back-scratching, shoulder-massaging, dish-washing and foot-rubbing machine.