I know I have said several times before that the brains of both of my sons fascinate me, but last night we had one of those moments that left us simultaneously fascinated, puzzled and frustrated.

Donny had a few friends over for his birthday which caused us to organize the basement. We have a storage room in the basement that was filled with odds and ends from our kids’ younger days. So we cleared it all out and separated the “trash” pile from the “keep”pile to the “give to my nephew’s two-year old son” pile. The stuff that made it into the “give to my nephew’s two-year old son” pile was put into my garage so my nephew could come over and inspect it. This included among other valuable rare items a Thomas the Train tent. What was overlooked in this process was Brian’s photographic memory and his need to have things always in their right place. A few hours after we finished, Brian came downstairs and went into the garage. He of course saw the items awaiting my nephew’s inspection and immediately started moving them back where they belonged: in the storage closet. Although Brian may have walked into the storage closet a total of 5 times since we moved here 14 years ago, his photographic memory instantly signaled to him that things were out of place. After Brian moved everything back into the closet, we figured he was finished. We were wrong. Once he came back upstairs, he immediately headed to a table surrounded by four chairs in our sun room that Nikki has claimed as her work space since March. He began dragging the chairs to the door leading to the basement steps. My husband, under Brian’s strict direction, eventually moved all four chairs back to the storage room. While this was happening. I was picking up the food we had ordered for Donny’s party and my husband was at a loss to understand why Brian had insisted on moving those four chairs into the basement storage room. But I knew. I had kept those chairs in that storage room for a few years until I was able to find a table that worked with them. What is fascinating is that I had taken those chair out of the storage room at least five years ago, even painted them (of course), but Brian never forgot. He continued moving little things around for a while until he settled. We have seen this behavior before (remind me to tell you about the porch chairs one day) but it really did come out of nowhere. We don’t know what triggered his need to move the chairs back yesterday. Perhaps he’s been waiting for the perfect time to make his move. We will never know. But what we do know is that the operation of Brian’s brain is a never-ending source of wonder and mystery for us. And for now, Nikki needs to find a new work space because from past experience we know that it is going to take a while to get our chairs back. Ugh.

Have a good week……stay healthy.