In walks Allan. Allan is an after school teacher. Imagine receiving 25 kids, sugar-high and summer-hungry and THEN entertaining them for four hours! YES. That's what Allan had just been through. Despite all of this, he asks,
"How can I help?"
My eyes timidly shift over to a checklist I have on the board. There are three items there.
"Okay...I have three things, but but .....then you are completely free!"
The three tasks are:
1. Help me roll up the rug.
2. Help me take down the alphabet cards hung up high on the wall.
3. Help me take down the "100 Things We Love About FSK" posters hung up high on the wall in the hallway.
He dives in, straight to work! Allan climbs right up onto my desk and starts peeling off the alphabet cards and meticulously removing the painters tape, all the while, keeping the cards in alphabetical order. He adroitly used tables, chairs and whatever else he can find to reach those 30+ cards (we have EXTRA cards for digraphs and unique vowel patterns, so he was working hard!).
Done!
He headed outside, took up a chair and started removing the "100 Things We Love About FSK" posters. These are hung EXRA high but he was able to get them with just a chair! (I had to use a ruler to push them up there!) Oh, the perks of being tall!!! He was so careful to take the tape off without ripping the paper, and he was apologetic when even a bit of paper came off with the tape.
I took a peek outside and I noticed something. AH, all the Reading Trains that the PTA had lovingly hung up as my children did their Read-a-Thon Reading. Eeeeek. It wasn't on the list. I made an eeeeeek face and Allan was like what? I pointed to the Reading Trains and he said, "Do you need those to be taken off?" I nodded, totally embarrassed, and he said, "Sure!"
EEEEeek. Thus begins my EXTREME level appreciation for Allan. To make a longer story a bit shorter, he completed the three items on my list, then I said, "YOU'RE FREE" and he said, "No, we're going to get you outta here!"
And I was like, "Noooooo" but he was like "Just tell me what you need to get done." How can you fight with that? It's past 6:40 now and he could have already been home, eating dinner and surfing the internet, but you know what?? He was helping a teacher!
If Hercules had 12 heroic feats, Allan had 12, too!:
1. Rolled up the rug.
2. Alphabet cards off the wall.
3. 100 Things We Love posters off the wall.
4. Taking the trains off the wall, then COLLATING them so the child's individual train pieces were all neatly stacked together!
5. Removing, one-by-one, the contents of my assessment file folder AND THEN removing the old names from the tiny little plastic tabs. Oh my goodness....HERCULEAN.
6. Taking my rose decorations (they have plastic THORNS) down from my doorway then taking every tiny piece of tape off of their stems.
7. Playing Tetris with my furniture to get two rolling carts to fit in an already-full cubby area!
8. Emptying the water from my flower vase without messing up the flowers or spilling the glass marbles I had at the bottom!
9. Taking my SUPER-CRAZY-HEAVY-AND-OVERFLOWINGLY-FULL recycling bin ACROSS the entire playground to the recycling bin!
10. Carrying eight bags at a time and two boxes at a time of my teaching stuff to my car!
11. Stuffing said eight bags and two boxes into my trunk!
12. Not complaining ONCE. Always asking what else he could do! GAHHH!!!!
It was past 7:30, but we were done.
IT IS DONE!!!!!
THE CLASSROOM IS CLEAN AND IT IS DONE!!!!!
And I could not have done it without Allan's help!
ALLAN, YOU DEFINITELY POSITIVELY MADE MY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!
