Coloring...

When Micah colors, he painstakingly tries to stay in between the lines. He could be doing real well, and then all of a sudden get one little, teeny, tiny mark outside the lines and he just flips. He'll get so upset that he'll scribble like a madman over the picture and throw in the towel. He'll either flip to another picture to start again, cry, or just walk away from coloring all together.

P-A-R-T-I-C-U-L-A-R.

Today I picked up a crayon and started coloring a picture. Micah began to watch me. He started calling the shots, saying things like, "don't forget to color that spot...color there too." Then I pulled a fast one on him. I got out of the lines (on purpose of course)! ;-) He jumped on that right away and was trying to come to grips with it. I just kept coloring (and kept going out of the lines). I casually said things like, "oh, that's all right...it'll be fine."

Soon enough he joined in on the coloring session, and, thankfully, the next time he got outside of the lines, he dealt with it better than usual. He coached himself by saying, "oh it's fine...it was just an accident," etc.

What other 3 year old would get bothered by this?  He's a funny one...