OCD-- OK!!

Anyone out there know if there's any way to tell whether or not a toddler is developing the beginnings of OCD? I only ask because, well, it seems my Cool Little Dude has developed/is developing a strange NEED to touch leaves and trees as we walk through the park.

He'll be sitting in his buggy, looking around like a normal baby, and then all of a sudden will lean dramatically to one side stretching his arm toward a dirty piece of nature... which means that if I want to avoid feelings of Mean-Momness, I steer us toward the bush, tree, or whatever he seems interested in. Then Evan will happily tap or stroke the tree trunk, give a leaf a tug or two, and then point to another moss-covered, termite-ridden block of wood and the same thing starts again.

Walks through the park are beginning to take longer, as is going to do the laundry. One of the corridors we walk through has red walls, which Evan must stop to inspect and pat. Lately he also has to hold the railing on the ramp outside our building. It took about ten minutes to walk down it today because we had to stop every three feet so he could grasp the metal and say, "Mmm-hmm, hmmm."

I sure would like to know what he's thinking. Maybe toddlers have a body-based ESP, whereby different textures speak baby-ese into their palms, leading them and their confused parents onward through rugged and uncharted territory: the kitchen drawers, or horror-of-horrors-- the local football pitch.