I strive for pefection.

I achieve, um, something quite a lot less than that.

But that’s okay.

My house is a mess but my children are happy.

I’m busy but they learn to be resourceful and fill their own time.

I don’t get anything done for myself or around the house that I would like to but there is always the hope that tomorrow might be the day I have a bit of time to achieve something. Or if not tomorrow, the children will grow up one day, right. Right?

No, definitely not perfection.

But I have learnt to make it work for me. Because when the children’s toys have become a mountainous pile in the playroom they will spend the whole morning of the first day of the half-term break delighting in sorting it out with the bribe of 20p of extra pocket money and end up overjoyed at finding toys they haven’t seen in months, leaving their grateful mother a few minutes of peace (while the baby sleeps over her shoulder) to have a cup of coffee.

Now that’s perfection.