Slip and Slide

Friday night one of the youth groups at the community center with us set up a long sheet of plastic on a hill. They added a hose and dish soap, and they had a water slide. Daughter put on some old shorts and a t-shirt and joined them. The rest of our group had seats above the slide at picnic tables. We chanted Daughter's name and did the wave for her. On her first trip down, a girl followed too quickly and ran into Daughter. We watched as she decided if she was injured or not. We could tell she was okay, but were doing commentary on the situation.
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"She's trying to decide how much sympathy she'll get."
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"She's decided there's no sympathy there, she's headed up the hill."
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"Oh, no-- some of the girls are offering her sympathy."
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"Look,she has an audience, she's crying."
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As three girls huddled around her as she sat on the ground crying, someone in our group started us chanting her name. It worked. She stopped crying, got up, and got in line to go down the hill again.
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The people in our group saw some of her tricks, and they understand. One night we were going to go out for ice cream right after supper. She wanted cake and ice cream at supper, and protested when I told her she needed to wait for the trip to the ice cream parlor. Finally I said, "You can have cake and ice cream now, or you can have ice cream at the ice cream parlor. I don't care which you choose, it's up to you." She then pouted because I was giving her an option. She chose to wait for the parlour, and refused to admit she'd made the right decision later.

The group watched my interactions with Daughter. They saw her mood swings. They saw the challenges. They get it. It's a wonderful gift to have them understand the challenges and support me. She really did do very well. It was her third week away from home and out of her routine. Two of those weeks were for new things. She really did handle it well.
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She's off to her program today. I'm home alone. I'm going to be doing some work around the house today, but first, I may go back to bed.