Parenting isn't easy on control freaks. I thought that, like most projects I tackle in life, careful study of the right books would fully equip me for pregnancy and motherhood. Whatever. Let's just say that What to Expect in the Toddler Years should contain the subtitle "In an Ideal World." (The Girlfriend's Guide books may not have prepared me any better, but they at least made me laugh. Hard.)

I like to carefully plan out and schedule my day, make to-do lists - for myself and Dave (oh yeah, he LOVES that) -- prioritize said list and then mark off each item with color-coded highlighters. I love highlighters.

My children like to put handfuls of mac-n-cheese in their pockets, develop strange rashes and get various parts of their bodies stuck in various places in the house five minutes before we need to pull out of the driveway to be somewhere. And those are the easy upsets to deal with. The most terrifying thing about parenthood, the thing I was totally unprepared for, is how vulnerable it makes you feel. Suddenly, the source of all your greatest joy and pain is walking around the world, running into things and people and you can't stop it or control it. I suppose I could wrap them up like mummies and feed them like baby birds but that's generally frowned upon by the best parenting books.

I realized fairly early on that I could either loosen the reins a bit or become a heavy drinker. Instead, when things veer off the rails, I organize.

My favorite tools: Velcro, Ziploc bags, a black Sharpie pen, strips of sticky magnets and index cards. During the long road to Billy's autism diagnosis, I became obsessed with organizing his toys correctly, as though the perfect playroom could "fix" him. I would stay awake at night debating whether the baby doll and bottle I bought for him (to practice imaginative play) should be in the "housekeeping" area, with the play kitchen, or next to the bikes, since his favorite thing to do with the baby doll was run over it with his Big Wheel.

I took a picture of every toy and labeled its position in the toy room with a Velcro-ed picture, so that he could practice returning things to the right place. I used those same Velcro-ed pictures on his picture schedule, a tool that helped teach him about his day and how to make choices.

My organization stress response isn't limited to toys, though. The week Billy started school I was so worried that I labeled every shelf in the kitchen cabinets with index cards; then I get blind with momentary rage if I open a cabinet and Dave has put a plate on the clearly marked "over-sized bowls" shelf. On the rare occasions that Dave and I argue, I reorganize his stuff. I might as well; if he's looking for something, he always asks me where it is, so it might as well be somewhere I put it.

He has said that he's afraid one day he's going to wake up and find himself sealed in a Ziploc bag labeled "Daddy" and Velcro-ed to the wall. And I told him that if I were stressed enough to do that, the bag might not be labeled "Daddy."

I'm probably the worst possible parent to deal with my son's autism; at least that's how it feels most days. It seems that no answers are clear-cut, no treatment is without debate, and the experts can't even decide how best to organize the diagnoses and treatments. (For more on the current debate about the American Psychiatric Association's recommendations, click here.)

Most medical doctors will recommend drugs and pooh-pooh the idea of more holistic approaches, such as the dietary interventions. Most parents, therapists and doctors who are very committed to biomedical (diet, supplements, etc.) interventions refuse to believe that every child can't be helped by those treatments. For every non-invasive therapy we try -- therapeutic listening, brushing, supplements, weighted vests, you name it -- there's a website or anonymous blogger somewhere saying how stupid it is.

I have poured over long lists of symptoms of everything from yeast sensitivity to sensory processing disorder. Some symptoms Billy seems to have, some he doesn't. Some seem to match the symptoms of five or six other allergies or disorders. Many of them instruct me to "watch his behavior" after eating certain things. Well, the same behavior that you attribute to wheat allergy could also be explained away by the fact he didn't nap today, his sister got chewed carrots on his Lightning McQueen car, and I won't let him watch TV. In short, controlling his environment and attributing behavior to one particular thing is next to impossible. He's a three-year-old, not a lab rat.

I thought when we started this process that if I found the right expert, I would get a clear-cut prescription and that would be that. Unfortunately, I found too many experts in everything except my child. It turns out that Dave and I (and my parents) are the only ones truly expert in Billy, what works for him and what doesn't. And even that list changes from one week to the next.

It drives me to distraction. But when the stress gets to be too much, I can always go organize Dave's closet.