Cricket2 I do have a loving family (5 sisters) and we all have children from ages 2-18) we are very non-competitive and are very close. I also have my own family and we really enjoy seeing what he does next as proud parents and older siblings do).
It's hard to hide my excitement, and i'm a sucker every time my friends start sharing their joys of their kids accomplishment that I open up too. Such as their baby walking at 9 months or 1 year (mine did not walk until 15 1/2 months where I was almost sent to a specialist) I am happy for them (even though I had my own insecurities with him not walking) they had no problem telling me that their baby is walking, or has been walking. But when I shared with them saying his sounds of the alphabet at 15 months not because I'm sitting there coaching a 15 month old, but because I turned around to see him sitting on the couch says his sounds blew me away). He did it so much I easily was able to film it on video, but instead of my friends saying wow it's sometimes just a shrug like ok? It hurts because I just expected the same kind of happiness that goes along with being friends, and having same aged children doing new things.
I'm def building a thicker skin and learning to just keep it in the family, and with both sets of Grandparents.

I am now starting to understand what sensory and intensity is all about. I didn't even know kids had issues like these, and that these specific issues had a name. It's his intensity, impatience, melt downs over his toys not standing up perfectly, him not being able to finish his breakfast because one cheerio has fallen on the floor and he can't let it go, and has to find it before he will eat again every single time. Him wanting all his action figures legs to be straight even though they are made to be bent at times. That his hands have crumbs on them after he eats, and is extremely bothered and screams like its the end of the world for his hands to be cleaned. Never being able to sleep not once as an infant in the car seat when I drove anywhere and screamed the whole time. Even though I heard these mythical stories of how a car ride makes most babies sleep, but never mine, and how I turned his seat around 2 month early cause I became a nervous reck trying to drive (sleep deprived) with a non-stop screaming infant stuck in traffic. miraculously he stopped crying when his seat was turned around facing me???
These are my reason for starting to take notice of what he's doing? I joke that this is what my husband must have been like as a child because he is this way as an adult in a great way. He just does everything "more" than any other person I know.

Thank you Cricket for your advice. I was starting to downplay his strengths by pointing out his weaknesses without realizing I was doing it?

I'm enjoying reading older posts and seeing a lot of similarities in my 2yr old, but in my husband and 3 older step children as well.