Our daughter is obsessive compulsive. Well, no, not really. I know lots of kids her age like order and are ritualistic; Rose is at the high end.

When getting dressed, the clothes have to go on in exactly the same order: underpants, socks, shirt, no pants before shirt. . .see I can never remember. But, if I get it wrong when I'm helping her, we have to take off the offending garment and start over.

She wants four drinks at breakfast—milk, water, grape juice, and orange juice. They have to be lined up in exactly the right order. For all I know, they have to be drunk in exactly the right order. I'm not monitoring that closely. I also told her I would get them to the table; she was in charge of putting them in the right place.

Bedtime snack is one cranberry, one caper (yes, I said a caper. This incredibly picky eater likes capers), one chocolate chip, one corn chip, half an animal cookie, and water from the SpongeBob cup. They get eaten in the same order every time, and she also always announces, "I'm taking my chocolate medicine!" as she eats the chocolate chip.

She'll stand at the bedroom door and point, horrified, "Mommy, look!" I'll look around wildly until I find the offending corner of shirt that didn't make it into the closed drawer, my fault of course.

One time John and Rose went shopping, and I thought I'd earn some brownie points by cleaning up the games she and I had been playing with. The next time she and John looked in the game cupboard she said, "Daddy, these are in the wrong place!"

When she was very little, she'd eat rice with her fingers and then we'd have to wipe them off, after every bite. She still hates to get her hands dirty.

All this makes for a very tidy house.

She certainly didn't get the neatness gene from me. I can imagine our life in a few years: Mommy, is it that hard to pick your clothes off the floor and put them in the hamper? Your piles of papers are in my way. If I've asked you once, I've asked you a thousand times, please bring your dirty cups downstairs and put them by the sink.

John will have to teach her how to cope with me.