Cookies make me anal

If I had to pick the one thing that I'm most anal about it's definitely my chocolate chip cookies. I can't help it, it's one of the thing's that I'm really good at. They're probably the best cookies I've ever tasted (sorry, but they are) and therefore every time I make them, they have to live up to standard that I've upheld for them. This may sound crazy, but after all...who's the crazy lady here? Oh, that would be me. I won't apologize for this either, although this morning I did realize just how anal I was about this topic which made me question how healthy this really is for me.
So I'm making cookies for some of my friends. I cream the butter and sugar to the right consistency, crack the eggs in a separate bowl because let's face it, who wants to have eggshells in their cookies? Then I carefully add the rest of the ingredients and I'm ready to go. I have my two best cookie sheets, my favorite spatula, the table lined with waxed paper where they can cool, and of course, my ice cream scoop which is how I get them to look perfectly round (that's one of my secrets). I can't stand to have an oblong cookie, and I think the roundness adds to how good they taste because when it comes down to it, isn't the presentation a big part of it? I think so. When the cookies look good, they taste better...just my opinion. Sometimes I don't even want to eat them, just look at them. I could look at those suckers for hours. The first thing I always do is make a "test" cookie. This way if something isn't right and I need to change the dough in anyway, I've only ruined one cookie. I've learned this to be a very important step in creating the best cookies.
So I'm making cookies this morning and everything's going great. I have my favorite Glee soundtrack cranked up and my kids are happily playing with their new Thomas Train table. All of a sudden, I hear the dreaded question from Grace, "Mommy, can I help?" Gulp. I instantly have a lump in my throat. So, being the great mommy that I am (right??) I picked up the scoop and cautiously handed it over to her. She picked it up with the biggest grin on her face (which helped a little), scooped up a huge amount of dough (another gulp) and proceeded to throw it on the pan. She was so proud...I was horrified. So I did what any anal-cookie-maker-mother would do. I let her skip out of the room, happy as a clam that she had helped. As soon as she was out of sight, I quickly corrected her hugely misshaped lump of dough. Sigh. Everything was as it should be again. After that everything went smoothly and I'm happy to report that as of now, they are cooling off beautifully and ready to be snatched up.
I guess I've realized that I may be a "little" too anal about my cookies, and in the future I'm going to try and be more willing to let my kids help (because seriously, what mom doesn't let her kid help?) It does need to be a balance though because it's something that truly makes me happy (sad, right?). So, if you've had my cookies, now you know what really goes into them. A lot of love...a lot of happiness...and a lot of stress!! :-)