Obsessive Compulsive

My mom, sister and myself have varying degrees of being obsessive compulsive. My mom takes ridiculously long showers at least two times a day. She is as squeaky clean as a human can possibly get. My sister has to have everything in order. It drives her absolutely nuts to see things misplaced. And I like a routine--not just your typical day to day things but weird things like if I start a notebook in blue pen then the whole notebook has to be in blue pen. We all have a little bit of the other things but these are the things that set us off the quickest.

So, I have been noticing that EV has been displaying more and more obsessive compulsiveness. She always had moments--for example, when she eats, she doesn't like it when her food touches each other and she also doesn't like it when she has a food item she doesn't want on her plate. She can't just ignore it, it has to be removed. The other day, she got really upset with me because she was placing stickers on a piece of paper when I wanted to help. So, I asked if I could help and at the same time I placed a piece on the paper. She got so upset because I placed a yellow triangle on the paper but there were still a few pink ovals left. She said, "Mommy, no!!! You can't start the triangles until you finish the ovals! You messed it all up!" She was very upset and didn't want to play with the stickers anymore.

I think she inherited my weird obsessiveness of needing routine. Yes, it bothers her if her hands are sticky and yes she likes to sort and organize things but the thing that bothers her the most is when things are not done a certain way. Just like me. I think the greatest challenge is to teach her flexibility and that it's okay when deep inside its driving me crazy too. It's so humbling when you see your own flaws through your kids!