Is this normal?

[ArgumentativeAardvark]

DD is 21 months. Whenever she plays with her of toys of plays the games she plays, she always does everything in the same order. For example her toy animals she always lines them up in the same order in the same place, then plays with them. She has lots of other little rituals that she does throughout the day which are similar to this. If she paints/colours she always uses the colours in the same order. And also likes to correspond her paint brush colour (handle) to the paint she's using. I've not noticed any other children her age doing this sort of thing.

I'm not worried about it exactly, it's just a funny quirk she has, but wondering if other children do this sort of thing to?

DS is similar. He is 4.5 and has lots of rituals and orders for things, always has. He is a little obsessed with Lego tidying. Massive meltdown if anything ever doesn't go to schedule.

DD is 20mo and does the same - will put her wooden animals into shape sorter in the same order and uses the same pens. She has about 4 routines that she does like this, but we aren't home much so I wonder if she would have more if we were. I think it is their way of making sense of things, making them 'stable' and familiar.

Glad it's not just DD. She is also extremely tidy, which is quite useful really

Lining things up and sorting things are apparently examples of early maths skills. You may yet have a genius

Oh blimey. I even failed maths GCSE . I really hope she doesn't ever need help with her homework on that particular subject (I have actually already asked a friend with an A'Level in maths if she can do this for me, when the time comes because I am so worried!).

Thanks for that Anything. Next time someone asks why she's doing it and says its a bit strange, I'll mention that