End of first week of school

Penelope started the week on a sour note. She was having a hard time with her anxiety and me being sick. My last post was about our wonderful Saturday where I walked in the rain because my car broke down to find she was fine, waiting patiently at her tutor's house. Sunday, she was done with me being sick. She was bored. She was disappointed we didn't go to the drive-in like we had planned. She was disappointed we didn't go to church. But her biggest disappointment was in that I had pushed her away with the "shaky" excuse of "I'm sick and I don't want you to get sick." I showed her how I was running a fever and she knew all the other symptoms but it just wasn't good enough. She'd say she understood but she was still mad about it. My parents took her out for a while and brought her back after dinner. She was still unhappy. She blamed me for them not going to the park "because you called and we had to go to the store instead." I knew that was a lie because all I asked was for my dad to pick up some medicine on his way back. That wouldn't have prevented him from taking her to the park if he had agreed to. The three of us talked about it. She was mad at me for being sick. I was getting in the way of her plans. There was zero sympathy. I told her that it wasn't her job to take care of me and I am not asking that, but I do expect her to understand that I really don't want to be sick and I'm not using it as an excuse to not be around her more or do fun things with her. She seemed to understand that her feelings were irrational but that I wasn't dismissing them but rather that we both know she needs to get them under control.
By Monday after school she was fine. Her first week of school seemed to go very good. The two main concerns being her interest in the school work and then social issues. She was so excited about having homework she did a little "I have homework" dance. LOL She even asked me to help her and didn't have a total conniption. Wednesday she did get really frustrated over not knowing how to do something and started to cry. I think she has a little of me in her, a little perfectionism in her. She wants to do so well this year. Straight As she said. We talked about realistic goals for short term and how to be patient with herself when things get hard. It was a matter of looking it up in her book to figure out what she was suppose to do. Her emotions were not settling fast enough and she was getting even more mad about that so she couldn't focus and would only grunt or make growl sounds when I'd make suggestions. So I made her close her book and take some deep breathes. She immediately said "I can't!" but fortunetly tried anyway and got herself to calm down. She then finished it and was a little mad for figuring out it was so easy. It was interesting to see how even being mad would make her mad. It's such a hard emotion for her to keep from escilating out of control.
But the rest of the week has been good for her. She even is doing well socially. The girl that bullies her has been not as successful because her friend that is in the middle finally has been standing up against the bully for Penelope's sake. I'm feeling good about not getting intervening. That has been so hard. It's important for Penelope to do this on her own, to see she can do it on her own even though it's really hard. I'm proud of her though.