The Crush

Domingo has a one-to-one aide, Earl. (A one-to-one aide is only responsible for their student. They shadow them all day.) 

Earl is fairly young, about six foot tall, and he probably hits the gym regularly. He's not a bad looking guy. 

Since Domingo spends most of his time outside, we don't see a lot of Earl, but he will pop in from time to time. And he helps us out as things come up. 

When I left the school at the end of January, they closed one class down (the class I was covering), and they redistributed the students amongst the three remaining classes. Penelope is a "new" (to the class) student as she wasn't there when I last covered this class in October. 

Penelope is bound to her wheelchair. She has limited mobility. She can speak, but her speech is limited and kind of difficult to understand. Mostly, she tells us yes (or si) and no and agua. And we get a pretty good idea of what she likes and what she doesn't. 

On Wednesday, the speech therapist was on campus. She had some new "cards" for Penelope's iPad. (Penelope can touch the "cards" to tell us something.) These "cards" were compliments, and the speech therapist commented that Penelope could use some of them to talk to Earl. 

Penelope likes Earl. 

I can't blame her. 

It was Thursday. Penelope called me over to help her fix her mask. 

(We are no longer required to wear masks in class. I still do. Penelope can take her mask off, but she can't quite put it back on. She doesn't have the manual dexterity. She takes it off if it gets wet or if she drinks water. And then she asks for help to put the mask back on. I have asked. I have offered to let her leave it off. She chooses to have it put back on.) 

So, I tried to put the mask back on her face, but she had turned her head. She generally will turn so I can put the mask back on, but this time she was distracted by something.

I looked up. Earl was helping to put stuff away in the cabinet next to her. 

Ah. 

I waited. 

Earl moved on. Penelope turned back towards her computer. I put her mask back on.

Sometimes I miss the obvious. At least now I'm clued in, so I'll know why Penelope is distracted.