I think my mom card is in jeopardy...

Mr. T is known by all who love him to be a bit, well, how do I put this? A bit particular about certain things. Some might go so far as to call him anal-retentive. Not me, of course. He just likes things his way. I can respect that, actually. He's not a neat freak and his things don't interfere with life...very often. He just has things in his head the way he wants them and real life better match up or be prepared to be changed. And if it can't be changed, he has a total meltdown. We're working on that part.

So today while he was at school, Miss G and I finished decorating the Christmas tree. I moved some ornaments that the kids had put on the very ends of branches to sturdier sections. As soon as Mr. T got home from school and saw this, he nonchalantly set about moving all the ornaments I had moved (that he had placed) back to where he had them. Back to the bowing, bending, breaking branches. I showed him why they needed to be on stronger branches and moved them to ones myself. He went back and moved them to other sturdy branches. Ones he picked out.

This is where the mom card gets iffy. I told him he is not to touch the tree at all from this point on. No moving any ornaments at all. As I'm telling him this, though, I couldn't keep my stern face. I just started laughing at how typically Mr. T the whole thing was. And worse, as I was talking to him, he reached out to move another ornament to where he wanted it. And I laughed as I was reminding him what I'd just told him. Isn't that like the first thing they tell you not to do in Parenting 101? Oops. There goes my mom card.

I'm not really worried about this, though. I mean I'm constantly trying to help him relax about whatever bizarre things he decides to obsess over and yet not crush that part of his spirit, because really it is him. It's part of the essence of Mr. T. I see my job as his parent - at least part of it - as helping him fit himself into the world - knowing when to change and when not to, what to change and what not to, how to do things the "right" way and how to stay true to yourself.