Perfectly Imperfect

I have the bad habit of being a perfectionist. I want everything I do to come out just right and ... let's be honest ... that can't always happen.
Well, when my children start planning their birthday parties, they plan big. And my newly-turned eight-year-old has also discovered the joy of pinterest and loves to search through ideas with me to make his party even better. So, when we started talking about his party, we agreed to go Nerf or nothing. In other words, a party full of dart guns and oranges and blues and boyish fun.
His first option for cake was a cupcake cake. I've always been intrigued by these, but never made one. The thought of trying to smooth the icing over all of the cupcakes to make it look like one cake was intimidating to me--especially since I don't prefer a ton of icing. But for him, I'd try it.

Well, as you can tell from the picture above, he changed his mind and wanted a cake instead. So, we looked through pictures and decided to do one with a target on top. I considered using candy-coated chocolates to make the target, but decided to go with decorating icing instead, since I'd used it before with success. The day before the party, I baked the tie-dyed cakes--orange and blue swirled together. I whipped up the homemade cream cheese icing and dyed it orange too. And once my son was in bed, I put everything together and started icing. I had an almost-perfect circular target on top of the cake, covered it and called it a night, deciding to finish it the next morning.
But the next morning, my circle was a blog, the icing running down over the sides of the cake. I almost cried. My family tried to calm me down, but I couldn't think straight. How was I going to fix this before the party? I didn't have enough frosting left, not to mention peace of mind.
And then my sister convinced me that it looked really cool the way it was and that her kids all thought I did it that way on purpose. My son said it looked like a dart had hit the target and made it explode. So, we went with it.
I was going to do the blue drips around the sides anyway? Why not let the whole thing drip?
Everyone at the party said it looked great.
I had thrown my hands up in despair over this cake, wanted to completely cancel the party over something so insignificant. I wanted it all to be perfect.
And it was. Just not how I thought perfect was supposed to be.
The party went great, my son said it was the best he'd ever had, and one of the other little boys declared he wanted to have a party just like it. 
Have you ever decided that something you did was less than perfect only to have people argue otherwise? Are your expectations sometimes higher than the people you're doing things for?