It dawned on my yesterday that Gina and I hit a small milestone this week. This week has been Parent-Teacher Conference week in the Springdale Schools. Of course, that makes for a long, hard week for Gina! But I realized on Thursday that this was the first year since 1988 that we haven't attended conferences as parents of a student!

We always made it a point to go to conferences (and most open houses) and meet all of the girls' teachers. It was never because there was a problem. Erin and Stacy are both great students and great girls. Every teacher spoke highly of them. But more than anything, it let both the girls and the teachers know that we were interested in what was going on in their lives. We wanted to know who was teaching them and what we could do to help. If the girls had a problem with a teacher (and that happens occasionally), we had at least some relationship with the teacher so that it was easier to approach them and find a solution.

They don't have parent-teacher conferences at the university. I guess that's OK. But maybe I should go around and find each of the girls' professors and schedule my own little conference with them ...