Lately I’ve been encouraging my daughter to be messy. I know it sounds insane but my 17-month-old is a neat freak and I’m a little concerned.

After music class she doesn’t just pick up her own instruments, she hands in those of her classmates. After meals, she picks food off her clothing and cleans up under her highchair. If she spills milk she finds a cloth and wipes it up. She loves to help hang laundry. One day she marched into a neighbor’s yard, found a Popsicle stick, brought it home and put it in our trash. I was feeling pretty smug about her behavior until I caught her picking individual grains of sand off her dress in the sandbox.

I come from a family of neat freaks. My father throws out the morning paper immediately after reading it. My brother cleans before his cleaning woman arrives. My mother doesn’t trust a cleaning woman. She does it herself.

My mother is visiting with me in London. Her return flight has been delayed because of the volcano in Iceland. While my step-father has caught up on his reading my mother has cleaned a bathroom, done some dusting and reorganized my refrigerator. She had already weeded, pruned and planted flowers in our garden.

Some daughters would be annoyed but I’m thrilled. I love neat no matter who makes it that way.

But after seeing my daughter in the sandbox, cleaning her clothes while the other kids had fun digging holes and throwing sand, I worried that my family’s neat genes had realigned themselves in a dangerous Monk-like way.

I consulted my mommy library. Nothing.  Next I went online and typed “neat freak baby” in Google only to find advice on how to get toddlers to clean up after themselves. I tried “my baby is a neat freak” and was relieved to discover other super neat babies.

One 16-month-old boy tidies up after his family, putting away the remote control, shoes, and closing cupboard doors. Some children spend hours reordering their books and cars. Others are more extreme, refusing to use public restrooms because they’re too dirty or washing their hands until they’re red and raw.

Until I’d consulted the internet I had no idea a toddler could have OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

There’s a boy who won’t eat his cereal unless the spoon slips into the dish at the right angle. And a little girl who refastens her shoes a dozen times before going out.

The more I read, the better I felt.  Most likely my daughter is mimicking me. For now, I’ve decided to stop compulsively tidying her play area every time she plays and also to stop showering her with compliments when she does the same.

Sadly it may be working all too well. Today she sent her lunch flying and then ate it off the floor.

Photo by Stephanie Gruner