My daughter graduates from Seaholm next spring, then heads to MSU in the fall. Even though the opportunity to waste time on Facebook hadn't yet been invented, it seems like yesterday she started kindergarten at Harlan.

However it was then that a gun went off, and boom:  We were in a race.

A race to see who would rack up the most points in the Accelerated Reader program; or which parents would operate the cotton candy machine at the Frolic, or volunteer to bake cupcakes for class parties that looked like mini-works of art. All before the kids headed to middle school. (During which my memory suddenly becomes fuzzy, except for long lines at conferences to see the math teacher.) Then it was on to high school to see who would survive AP and Honors classes, and who might, oh, be the first to get a parking pass.

After numerous attempts to compete, I realized we weren't the type of parents who moved in a straight line and neither were our two kids. While some students (and parents) seemed to go from point A to B pretty fast, we sort of zig-zagged around, with kids who experimented with a variety of grades (yes, you read that right) and academic pursuits.  This also included engaging in activities that weren't logistically convenient (can we say dance lessons in that suburb-to-the-north, Rochester Hills?)

Maybe we were lazy, but my husband and I never insisted our kids take up activities they didn't enjoy. It could be that our son, a sophomore, broke us of that habit after refusing to come out of his room for soccer games when he was five or six. Fortunately, both kids developed interests they naturally followed, even if the money we spent on gas schlepping them back and forth might have bailed out an auto company or two.

Then there were days we didn't do homework right after school. And others where we didn't worry about so-called bad teachers (at least we never called to complain). Oh, I suppose we could have attended PTA meetings, or cornered the principal at parent/teacher conferences to express concerns over homework or grades. But by stepping in, it seemed like we were depriving our kids of the fine art of digging themselves out of a hole. And boy, if I had one skill that has helped me more than any other, it's that.

So I guess you could say the race is over, at least with one child. Now that our daughter has been accepted at her school of choice, we get to enjoy her last year at home without worrying how she stacks up against the World-is-Flat competition. For a parent who is better at minding her own business than crossing the finish line first, that is mighty nice relief.