As we sat in swimming lessons today, the mother of a friend of Declan’s leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Did you notice Asher’s hair?” I honestly hadn’t, but on closer inspection, it appears that he and a pair of scissors had had an argument. And the scissors won. Asher recently had had a fairly short haircut, so it really took a trained eye to see the gaping hole. But there definitely *was* a gaping hole. Apparently Asher became bored in class he decided RIGHT THEN was the time to get creative. With his hair.

Asher’s parents had discussed it with him at length, just once, and decided to not bring it up again. That if he gets bored again, they were sure his teacher had *plenty* of things to occupy his time. That since they had recently paid for a haircut, he would have to live with the consequences of his beautician-for-a-day antics, and they would not go back and spend more money to fix the issue. But also that, kids will be kids, hair grows, he learned his lesson, so be it – and most importantly, to repeatedly discuss it would intrigue Asher’s very strong-willed and long-haired younger sister.

So we whispered about it quickly in the echoey chamber of the swimming hall and quickly shut up when the boys came near.

But my friend also mentioned

Just like the name of her blog, The Casual Perfectionist, Momma is an admitted perfectionist, but she’s trying to be casual about it. She and her husband have a little girl named Claire, who will be 3-yrs old at the end of November. Momma is a firm believer in the fact that if you haven’t laughed really hard today, you weren’t really paying attention.

Any parent will tell you that parenthood is full of surprises. There are joys and challenges. For me, as a perfectionist, I knew what a lot of those things would be going into this project. I studied enough books and various forms of information on the subject to complete a Master’s Degree in it. I gleaned as much knowledge as I could from friends and family members who had been there. And, I’m just enough of a perfectionist to know that I’d have to jump in with both feet, not look back, and go with the flow.

(Apparently my Master’s Degree came with a concentration in Cliché Usage.)

I couldn’t wait to experience the challenges and see if I could handle them.

There were the obvious challenges ranging from “how to maintain an adult conversation after having only two hours of sleep” to “how to take a relaxing shower when you’re home by yourself with the baby” to “how to carry a baby in a car-seat-carrier and the groceries at the same time” to “figuring out the best way to maneuver over kiddie gates without tripping yourself.”

But hidden beneath the surface are the things that you don’t read about; the things that make you question whether you’re cut out for this kind of work; the things that you only discuss with your best girlfriends, in a hushed voice, and you only talk about them if someone else brings it up first. These are the things that make you wonder if anyone can ever take away your real college degree, because there’s obviously been some kind of mistake.

There’s the morning at 3 a.m. when