Last night I had a conference with my daughter's teacher. It was completely unremarkable, quick and basically amounted to being told her marks are at grade level or over and things are fine. The squabbling from the begining of the year has pretty much ended but it wasn't a huge deal before - just a girl thing.

I've never once been in a conference like that. I've always been worried, angling for resources, full of concern and thinking two steps ahead.

She has no IEP, no 504 and she's not getting any tutoring in or out of school, except for my help. She's doing just fine on her own.

It has taken us so long to get to this point. I say us because I feel like our entire family made this journey but really it was our daughter who did most of the work.

There was never any easy answer what to do with her when her grades were failing when she was younger. We finally bit the bullet and had her repeat a year. It was our call - she passed the year but by the skin of her teeth and with huge efforts from us and tutors.

She has some learning gaps (I think most of us do) and some challenges to work with but she's a smart kid with a fine IQ. It took us forever to grasp some of it was maturity, that one more year to grow up more would help her learn more.

And it did. She's no longer just getting by but really understanding and happy. She joined the scrabble club for goodness sake and she's regularly asking about doing more to get a better grade on projects. She got what was the best grade possible on a project at the end of the year last year (we are in year round so that was the end of June) and she loved the feeling. She's proud of herself and thinks KNOWS she is smart.

I feel like exhaling for a long while and burning about 100 workbooks (just kidding).

We all need to remember chronology is only a loosely helpful way to gauge developmental levels in general. Sometimes we need to toss out the charts and just look at the situation for exactly what it is at the moment and make the decisions based on that.

I'm so proud of my daughter.