This is my tenth year of teaching. The first four years of my career were spent in Kindergarten. This is my sixth year of teaching fourth grade. Some of the funniest moments of my teaching career occurred during the four years I spent in the Kindergarten classroom. The following story is probably one of my top five.
Each day I took my students on two large group bathroom breaks. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I had a restroom in my classroom, so the students were able to go in individually when needed. One glorious Kindergarten morning, my class embarked on the journey to the bathroom. I sent the students into the restroom three at a time in order to reduce the amount of monkeying around. It is amazing how much time one kindergarten student can spend in the restroom.
When I had most of my students out of the restroom, I told the remaining few students that we were headed back to the classroom. They understood that this meant they needed to hurry up and return to class. Within a few minutes everyone was back in the classroom working on their alphabet pages. Except one. One boy, notorious for dilly dallying, was still not back. I waited five more minutes; still no student. I asked my teaching neighbor to watch my classroom as I went down to the bathroom to investigate.
Now, with this being a boy student, I could not physically go into the restroom to see what the hold up might be. So, I stood at the door of the restroom and sternly asked the little boy what was taking so long. He hesitated for a few seconds and then blessed me with this response, “I’m stuck!” Trying to stifle my laughter, I asked him what he meant. He told me it was hard to explain. With having no other option, I located the male custodian in the building, and asked him if he would go into the restroom to help my stranded pupil. He obliged and headed in.
A few minutes passed with muffled talking, and then the custodian emerged from the restroom. I could tell he was doing his best to not laugh hysterically. I asked him what had happened, and this was his tale.
Male custodian. “I walked into the restroom and saw two feet dangling from the stool in the stall. I asked the student what was wrong, and the student explained that he had to poop. In order to do so, he had removed his pants and underpants. When the student tried to put his underpants back on, he managed to twist them; therefore entangling his feet and ankles. He couldn’t figure out how to untangle his underpants, and was therefore stuck on the commode until a rescuer came to his aid.”
I thanked the superhero for helping my student as the student emerged from the bathroom. This precious student looked at me with thankfulness in his eyes. He then said to me, “Mrs. Law, I thought I was stuck in there forever. All I could think about was how I would get food!” He smiled at me and headed back to the classroom. I had to compose myself from laughing so hard before I could walk back in to my room.
This story, as funny as it is, got me to thinking. What is it that entangles us? What keeps us from being able to move forward? What is keeping you from chasing a dream, or heading in the direction that you want to head? Are you waiting for someone to come help you untangle yourself, or are you able to figure it out and move forward? Whatever is entangling you today, whatever is stopping you from moving forward, I hope you find the strength to untangle it on your own, or reach out to a superhero for help.
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