Mr. Details

I had never been one for details when I was growing up. Wearing a purple plaid shirt with socks that had green stripes was a reasonable ensemble to me. And if my hair wasn’t combed, well, that was just a minor detail that I overlooked. Running a household of six kids made it difficult for my mom to always catch such non-conventional fashion from exiting the house.  She did try, though.

Our first child had the same tendencies that I did, which I now realize came more from both of us being absent-minded. This was not an unusual trait for children growing up nor is it unusual now. Being a public school teacher I found that many of my students had leanings this way, especially the boys. My oldest son still struggles with this from time to time as it pertains to his hair. Fortunately he has outgrown the clashing socks stage.

This tendency to overlook little but key details that Jonathan had made sense to me. Due to genetics I expected to see certain physical and behavioral traits in my children that I had when I was a child. That is why I married a woman whose genetics I anticipated would mitigate certain deficiencies that I had. Genetics, indeed, is a wonderful thing. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that our second son, Jacob, was a detail guy from the beginning. He was so meticulous and industrious as a baby that I am certain that if he had the ability to move about the room and manipulate objects with his chubby fingers once he was born; he would have organized our building blocks and teething toys by shape, color, and the date of manufacture. Jacob, we realized, was a detail guy.

I should have first noticed this when he had the amazing ability to spot a ball (one of his first words) any ball, wherever it would be. Now that we had two boys, there was no shortage of sports balls for Jacob to spot and play with in our small home. He would point them out to us at stores and on when he saw them from the car. One time we were in a very cluttered basement of a friend of ours. There were piles of things that had gathered there over the years. As soon as I stepped into the room with Jacob in my arms he exclaimed, “Ball!” and pointed at a stack of clothes and old toys. It took me a few seconds, but I did find the small red ball that he noticed as soon as we had entered the room.

At first we just thought he was just good at spotting things. It turned out that he would be much more particular about the things he noticed. Take socks and shoes for instance. As a toddler he noticed that socks had seams. He insisted that the seams be lined up right on the outer edge of each foot. He was also very particular about his shoelaces. They must never touch the ground once they were tied. Oh, and pant cuffs! They had to fall at just the right height on his ankle when he stood on his short little legs. We were beginning to wonder if our son was really a drill sergeant preparing for a review rather than the cherubic toddler that we beheld in front of us!

For a time the details of his young life, the ones that he felt that he had some sort of control over, were very important to Jacob. Take his love of LEGO, for instance. Jacob still loves to play with LEGO bricks. As a young child his creations were realistic and showed attention to symmetry and color. Once finished he would proudly present his creations to us, delighting us with each design and with his descriptions about how he arranged the LEGO bricks. He was very deliberate and specific about where he put the individual pieces.

I was pretty good at building LEGO planes and houses as a kid, but I never put near the thought into them that Jacob did. Based on how good he was at noticing things and how much effort he put into organizing his toys and life, I decided to run a little experiment. I switched out some of the small pieces on some of his LEGO inventions to see if he would notice. Not only did he promptly notice, my experiment drove him nuts! He would mutter, “That’s not right.” as he quickly put the pieces back into the original places that he had intended.  For Jacob the details did matter and still very much do to this day.

Being able to pay attention to the details is a great asset. Jacob has used this trait to build numerous forts in our home out of furniture, blankets and sleeping bags. (Complete with functioning doors, rooms, and reading lights.) His room is lined with Lego cars and airplanes that testify of his drive.  Each new device evidences his desire to build even more sophisticated contraptions. We are also pleased to see him use this trait in his schoolwork, where he consistently turns in quality work, including a fairly comprehensive little book he wrote and illustrated on sharks.