A Sense of Order....

Remember about a month ago when I came back from a meeting and the Boy had voluntarily put away the dishes out of the dishwasher? He only did it one time much to my slightest disappointment hoping that it was one of those summer obsessions starting, but no. Well, I didn't connect that to the 3 plates missing for a month. I thought we'd broken a bunch or something.
I found them today where he had carefully put them. They were hiding in plain sight in with the dishes, but just hanging out with non-plates---artfully stacked with fancy serving bowls and tucked in sideways. I just don't open that side of the cabinet often. It didn't occur to me as he had put the other plates where they belong.

Ignore the spilled ground coffee there (not dirt). He turned the white plate with the blue rim upside down over the bowl so the flowered plate would have a match. And tucked the one small all white plate in by the black serving platter.

I noticed these were all the "odd" ones out that are single strange plates that have somehow come to live with us and are "one of a kind". So, he logically put them with the "one of a kind" serving bowls that I don't have any that match each other.
I thought about it and how it is a step in the right direction of having a sense of order that makes sense to him. I think this was the clearest message he's given us about how he would like things ordered. We don't have order in this house and he  has told me of late he doesn't like that. I do understand. I try to work on it as I'm sure my sense of "order" doesn't make sense to anyone but me.
I guess that is part of what autism is too. An order and sensibility that is not only one's own, but makes sense to the individual. It puts all things in order for them.

My stack of blue plates without those plates. I always nest them by size, but with those odd plates stuck into the stack usually.

I'm sure there was a reason each plate had it's own home sideways stuck in, upside down on top of the bowls, and sitting alone in one part of the cabinet. I'm sure it made him very happy to see them there and not with the stack of blue and black plates on the other side of the cabinet. I remember how proud he was when I got home that day he put everything away---to arrange his own world---for him----for me---for all of us.
If he does unload the dishwasher again anytime soon, I'll know to look. And I'll keep searching for those missing items that really aren't lost at all.