Miss Emily seems to a wee bit of a perfectionist. She will spend hours making sure her ponytail is smooth and has just the right amount of flyaways. She will sing a line in a song over and over and over until she has gotten it exactly the way she wanted to. She will try on 45 pairs of the exact same leggings to find the ones that work the best with her outfit.

But her grades? Those are a whole different ball game.

“If I don’t get a hundred, Mommy, it’s pretty much like I failed the entire test.”

“Um, no, baby, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. I mean, I know it has been a long time since I was in school, but I’m pretty sure a 94 is considered an excellent grade.”

“It’s not when the goal is to get PERFECT, and you know, to do better than everyone else.”

“Emily. You are in 4th grade. I really don’t even think it’s possible to fail 4th grade. You’d probably have to work really hard to make that happen.”

“I don’t even know why I talk to you, Mom.”

“I don’t either. I’d probably fail fourth grade if I had to do it over.”

“Oh, you definitely would.”

Interestingly, the day she and I had this conversation, I found an old high school report card of mine.

I died laughing from this for about an hour. My mom’s comments. MY MOM’S COMMENTS.

But, it became very clear to me that not only did the looks skip a generation (Isabella and my mom are twins), but apparently, perfectionism does too…since, you know, my ALL A-, A, and A+ report card was only PRETTY GOOD.

(PS. I’d also like to thank my Math teacher, Mrs. Wasserstrom, for finding it necessary to point out that even though I got ALL As in her class, I was still a disruptive influence in class.)