My year of less is more: the roller coaster

Going out

I proudly announce on Facebook that she is well enough to leave the house!  Yay! To visit her school friends!  She is so excited!  Is ready and dressed an hour before we are due to leave!

I suggest I pick her up after two hours.  She starts crying because that feels like a babyish amount of time. So we negotiate (against all better judgement) that I'll pick her up after three hours.  I want her to spend time with her peers ('Important to not become isolated from peers' says Blog 1 on the blessed Interweb) but I'm so nervous about her getting tired ('Don't let them think they can do more than they're capable of' says Blog 2).

I pick her up and I know it hasn't gone well.  I ask her how she is.  'Tired'.  What did you do?  'We had dinner, talked, played handball", ("HANDBALL?!!" I mentally shriek.  But Blog 3 said 'No exercise otherwise it will set them back').  'But not much handball - just a few hits' (I exhale and regain normal breathing).  How was it? 'A bit hard'.  Why? 'They just talked about school'.  She walks in the front door, straight to bed, no more to be said.

I go to bed sad.  I toss and turn all night, worrying and worrying that we did the wrong thing.  But it was kind of the right thing, but then was it too long?  Have we blown the brief moment of energy that's accrued over the past few days?

I'm prepared for a grey, totally washed out face to greet me.  But against all our expectations (including hers), when she eventually gets up at 9:45am (normal time), she kind of looks alright.  Actually she says she feels tired, but not 'deep tired' (her words).

I breath a little lighter.  This is how it goes.  The roller coaster.