Jake's hoarding behavior has reached an all-time high. He takes little (and big)things into his tent.. and well, I'm not sure what he does with them there. He holds them, looks at them, most recently loads them into his John Deer tractor bed, and basically just packs them away. I cleaned out his tent on Tuesday after the "Puzzle Fiasco." Jake managed to find a box of puzzles and took all of the pieces, probably 100 in all, out of the puzzles and packed them all in his tent. This obviously sparked the desire for more puzzle pices, so he found everything he could find that even LOOKED like a puzzle piece and packed those in too. Then he fell asleep. When I went to check on him it was quite a sight. In many ways its funny and endearing, but my heart sinks a little when I see him doing these types of things, because I recognize it as compulsive behaviour.
The puzzles are all put away, except for one favorite one, and he must have packed those pieces in sometime yesterday. If I try to catch a few minutes sewing and see Jake run by the sewing room door to the family room, hear some rustling around, then hear him run by the door the other direction, wash-rinse-repeat, I can tell he's found something new to collect, one piece at a time. I recently got a newsletter from Parentcenter (ugh, I need to remember to un-sub) that was titled "Your three year old, His first collection." Yeah man, if you only knew.
The question "Have you seen my ______?" is often answered "Have you checked Jake's tent?" these days. Cell phones, kitchen thermometers, work badges, and sewing scraps and equipment (nothing sharp, he won't touch scissors or knives), nothing is safe. Every single piece has significance for him, and even tiny scraps of paper or wrappings are not just random trash.
So, without further ado.. here is today's bounty. This is less than 48 hrs worth of work for him.
