How do you sign "granola bars"?

 We had a funny story the other day as we were signing at dinner. Jane is 4, and is getting better at keeping secrets. But she's still learning....

At dinner, Jane, Dad and I were talking about what we did that day, which was getting ready for Lillian's birthday. Lillian wasn't paying attention, she was talking to someone else. As Jane told us about wrapping Jane's present, I jokingly tested her secret-keeping skills and signed, "What did you get Lillian for her birthday." Jane looked really confused, thought for a minute, then put down her hands and blurts out loud, "How do you sign granola bars?" Lillian is startled and looks at us. Dad and I try to tell Jane to shut up without acting like there was anything significant about granola bars at all. Lillian wisely puts on an "I didn't hear anything" face....and, we now know, don't tell Jane anything you really need to keep quiet yet. :)

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Last night was a stake youth activity. Brother Lagos was one of the youth leaders, and Marriner was interpreting for him. There was one part when the kids needed to come up to the leader, obtain some information through questioning, and move on in the scavenger hunt. Marriner and Brother Lagos were chatting when Lige's group came up. I've previously mentioned how it's getting tougher to sign behind our kids' backs - Lige apparently saw the answer to the clue before they got within earshot of the leaders, told his group what the answer was, and they moved on. Totally cheating! ;) And, we have to be even more careful about what we say, it seems!

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We're getting ready for our Primary program next week in Sacrament meeting. Our last song, the grand finale, is "I know that my Redeemer Lives" with violin and piano accompaniment (instead of pre-recorded church songs). I'm really excited for this song, even though I didn't manage to get live piano and violin. I'd hoped Lige and Lillian would do the music, but Lige is so swamped by school work this year, he didn't have time to learn it, so I took over. I thought of playing the piano pre-recorded and having the violin live, but you know, that just didn't seem like the right way to do it - a little karaoke-like. So Lill and I will record the accompaniment tonight, and I'll just play it from my phone like all the other songs. 

We learned this song during the beginning of our re-opening, when we didn't have all the kids back. I had the two kids in senior primary do a little project of interpreting their own verse and doing it as a solo. So the whole primary sings verses 1 and 4, and Sam and Liliaka each have a solo for verse 2 and 3. It's really cute, but the logistics are complex because we had to find a way for them to stand where everyone in the chapel can see them for their part. During a normal song, we have everyone standing along the front of the rostrum, and everyone in the audience can see *some* or even *most* of the kids. But the pulpit is always gonna block the view of some people. So why, you ask, don't use use the pulpit? Cuz the kids are too short! (cough, ok, just Sam...Liliaka's totally tall enough...) Even Lillian has to stand on the kid stool when she speaks in church. But Sam, you can only see his head, and the microphone sorta obstructs that. So we had to be creative....we got the step stool for the water fountain and stacked that on top of the built-in step stool. Now we can see Sam just fine! Grand musical number saved! Sam just has to make sure to NOT fall off!! :) Anyway, I'm excited, I think it's going to be pretty great. 

No more secrets. :(

 It's been awhile since we've had a good ASL-related story, but finally one popped up yesterday.

We planned a super fun Family History day the other day - we try to spend 1 day a month at the temple, but with the pandemic, the temple was shut down, so we started doing family history days instead. Our temple is closed this month for maintenance, so we planned another family history day. We'd originally planned the day to go to the beach, but we all had colds, so we canceled that. It caused great disappointment among the younger kids. But I tried to make things fun by planning an "ocean" themed family history day, where we took a picnic to a little beach on the Potomac river and learned about various ancestors who had emigrated to the US. 

Of course, I didn't tell the kids about this, but the kids were starting to think something was up as we told people (for no reason at all) that they'd probably want to get their shoes on. I turned to Marriner and signed to him to go pack the picnic while I made sure everyone had water bottles. 

Now, 4 years ago, Marriner and I could sign anything we wanted in complete secrecy. It didn't matter that my kids knew how to sign - if our hands went up, their eyes went down, almost by reflex. Because if they actually paid attention, their parents might ask them a question or something else hard, and avoidance was the primary coping method. This sounds like hyperbole, but I promise we have evidence - Marriner and I talked freely about the new baby coming to our family (Jane - 2017) for a month before someone finally noticed. We had to be ridiculously blatant, almost ostentatious, to get them to catch it. 

Well, a new generation has arisen with either better language skills or better people skills. When I signed to Marriner, "Go pack the picnic," Sam (who was just passing through the room, and I had no thought he would pay attention) suddenly perked up and ran off yelling, "GUYS! WE'RE GOING ON A PICNIC!" Which means he even read picnic fingerspelled. 

My parents always switched to French when they needed to discuss something in secret, and Marriner and I have enjoyed some of that same privilege up until this point. But no more. If we need to discuss, we must go to a different room! Our kids are getting too observant.

My kids making music

 Martha and Jane did this for us the other day. They're stinkin' cute. I remember back when Lige, Ellis and Lillian were little, and I would take videos of them singing and playing the piano/recorder/violin/bucket drums. Now I'm taking videos of my younger kids doing the same thing, but Jane is doing it in ASL. Bonus points if you can figure out what song it is (without sound!)

Ok, I'll tell you what song it is below...

It's "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree." If you figured that out, you must teach preschool in a deaf school, or be the mother of lots of young kids, and I am very impressed!

Singing time yoga

 In my continued search for singing time activities that we can do without using hands, I found another hilarious and fun one: Singing Time Yoga!

We learned the song "Help me, Dear Father" to go with the theme of forgiveness. The ASL video of the song falls under the category of "Unfortunately recorded in the '80's." But I was impressed that none of the kids even mentioned it. To me, anyway. Maybe they mentioned it to their parents later on when they were complained to their parents about how ridiculous Sister Merrill is lately :) 

We drew pieces of paper from a jar with different yoga poses on them. We did poses you can do with just your feet: staff pose, lotus pose, eagle pose, tree pose, warrior pose....The kids weren't very good at it, but it kept their attention. By far the best part was the two dads who taught senior primary. The sisters who taught junior primary were wiser and just enjoyed watching. :) 

I did not think about the fact that I was going to get to do yoga twice in a row - by the end of singing time, I was hot and sweaty! Couldn't decide if that was a little too rambunctious for the Sabbath, or if I should go home and cheer for exercising. :) 

I am truly enjoying our new explorations in using technology and activity to learn songs. I'm a little worried I'll run out of ideas, and have a rebellion from the kids. But I think we'll make it. After all, we only have 6 months until my current 11-yr olds graduate, and then I don't have any 11 year olds next year at all. (I'm sure all of my readers have heard me lament about how a kid can be my friend from when they're 3 all the way to 10, and then suddenly when they're 11, they are just way. too. cool. for me. It's tough. But then they leave, and they're suddenly my friend again.)

Girls camp

 This week was girls camp for Ellis and Lillian, and they invited the moms to join in. I'm gonna copy pretty generously from a letter I wrote to my family about it, but add in some extra commentary. :)

Hello! The highlight of this week was probably girls camp. It was fabulous. Since we had a mother-daughter camp this year, you even get to hear about it! We went up to Patapsco Valley State park, a little north of us. Lovely area, though the cicadas were less gone there than they are at home. But it's ok, they were certainly not abundant or noxious. Though present enough to inspire a musical masterpiece by Ellis, Lillian and Lizzie. More about that later....

We were thrilled to be able to camp in-person, without masks. Everyone had to sleep in tents with only family members, but that didn't cramp our style much. Thursday, we played disc golf, then did the most relaxing service project ever pulling wavy leaf basketgrass (https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/pages/plants_wildlife/invasives/inv_wavyleafbasketgrass.aspx) around a hole at the disc golf course. It's really easy to pull up, so we just sat and pulled and chatted. Did I mention the weather was amazing, too?

(Pulling weeds really hit at the toughest part of sign language, for me. It seems intuitive to me that when you're hanging out with deaf people, you don't talk. It's just not polite. But what about when you're doing something with your hands, like pulling weeds? Do you just work in silence? Do you give up and talk to anyone else that's hearing? Do you half work and half sign? It's always been SUPER awkward for me, to the point that I sorta want to avoid going to craft activities. I don't, but I have to fight myself to go. So, as we worked, I just did a little bit of both. Sometimes I'd talk, if there were just hearing people around. Sometimes, I'd work in silence. Sometimes I'd interrupt the work to make a comment. I noticed the deaf people were very content to just work and not socialize a lot. It was a good example for me. On the way back to camp, one of the moms asked us to remind our kids that they need to sign. So I just asked what the rule is for when you're working with your hands. She said she was fine with talking if you can't use your hands, but turn your hands back on when you're done. She's also fine with talking and signing at the same time, if you want to do that. I was grateful for her thoughts, it helped me a lot throughout the week. For example in the morning when there were just two hearing people up, and talking seemed easier than signing. But I remembered to go ahead and use my hands as well. Then when a deaf person popped out of her tent, she could join us very naturally, and I didn't feel embarrassed or rude.)

 In the evening, we had a fireside with two sisters in the branch who have helped translate the scriptures. Minnie-Mae, who signed the entire Book of Mormon by herself in the 80's and 90's, and Heather, who just did the D&C and PofGP. I thought they were going to tell about spiritual experiences they'd had while translating, but no, they actually taught the girls about how to translate. It was cool. We talked about the difference between interpretation, in which you can do things like simplify symbols and analogies, and translation, in which you need to retain each concept strictly. We practiced on some verses from Isaiah. It was tough - the verse used the word "them" - who exactly is "them"? My partner and I read the scripture very differently - a lot of discussion was necessary to understand the verse enough to even start translating it. Then you have to make specific word choices - for moth, should we use the generic sign for butterfly/moth, or should we spell it out? Ah, so hard! But so fun. I admit, I hold the performance of a good translator up with the work of a master painist or a star soccer player. Just amazing and beautiful to watch. I was impressed to see the girls just eating the activity up, too. You could tell - they WANT to learn ASL better. They want to understand church and be able to communicate with their parents. I felt a little vision for the incredible goodness of these girls open up as I watched them.

Friday, we did the coolest activity ever, which I will share here, so that all the rest of you working with the YW can put it in your idea bucket. :) For our hike, they brought an extra large water bottle, which represented a burden. (Our theme was "bear one another's burdens".) One person started with the burden, and when they got tired of carrying it, we stopped and they shared a real burden they had. Then someone else (or sometimes everyone else) would share a way they could help bear that burden, they'd take the water bottle, and we'd walk some more. It ended up being an absolutely lovely experience. We learned so much about each other, and felt so much connection - for example, the girl whose brother tells her she's faking it when she has anxiety was very encouraged when the YW president told about an anxiety attack she'd had once that kept her from going to camp - but also led to a friend getting baptized! After it went around the girls (there are only 4 of them...) the moms and leaders took turns. At one point, one of the girls said, "You moms should start a support group together." We all said, "That's what the church is. That's why we're here.' I think it was an eye opening moment. 

In the afternoon, we had an optional activity to visit an elderly branch member who lived close by (40 minute drive...us and our strange ideas of "close"...) My girls had promised to go visit when they set up the activity, and Lizzie's mom made her go, so off we went. The visit was pretty dull for the girls, as they didn't do much talking, just sat around awkwardly. Ruth Ann, our elderly friend, wanted to talk to the adults, not the kids. I felt a little bad for them. I wondered for a bit if the trip was worth it for them. But on the way home, things got interesting. The moms sat in the front and chatted as much as possible without crashing - maybe I should have made Heather drive. The girls, meanwhile, sat in the back and, not needing to sign any more, started singing camp songs. Then they started composing camp songs, and then interpreting them so they could perform them at the camp talent show that night. I will share the lyrics, which go to the tune of "Sippin' Cider."

Cicadas are the ugliest thing
The world has ever ever seen (repeat)
They're in your hair, they're in your ear
I do not like them over here! (repeat)
The moral of this story is
If you see them, then squash them flat!

After that, we had a great evening with talent show and testimony meeting, then did a zip line and giant swing the next day (I mean giant - I still feel queasy from it 2 days later!) We didn't make it home in time for the NHD awards ceremony, so we grabbed some celebratory tacos and pulled into a library parking lot to watch the show from Laurel. Alas, the girls didn't win, but it was still a great experience. How many people can say they've attended a national awards ceremony in their smelly post-camp attire, sitting in a parking lot eating tacos? It was as 2021 as it gets :)

One more observation: on Thursday, some of the stake Young Women presidency came to visit. One of them happens to be an ASL interpreter, yay. The other doesn't know any ASL. We were doing the service project, then some crafts, so not a formal activity where you'd have someone interpret. I wasn't sure how she was going to chat with us appropriately. But it just worked out. At one point, we had me, a deaf mom, our branch YW president and the stake YW president all in a group chatting. The 3 of us who knew sign language were voicing as we signed. When the stake YW president talked, the deaf mom used her mad lip reading skills. I'm not very good at sim-comming (signing and talking at the same time) but I felt like the spirit helped us all understand one another, and everyone overlooked grammar, and it worked. Huge credit to the deaf person for being willing to let the conversation be a little loosy-goosy language wise, and to the hearing person for overcoming any fear of joining a conversation in a language she didn't speak. I'm always so grateful for the stake leaders who don't avoid us because they don't know how to talk to us.

Well, nap time is over, so writing time is done. Write some more later!

You sing, Mom, and I'll interpret.

 Today, we get a cute Jane story!!

I've been experimenting a lot with teaching singing in ASL. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I've been using technology more. I've found that if the TV does the signing, I can do some of the other things a singing leader can do, like be silly, compliment people who are doing a good job, move closer to people who are losing focus, etc. I like it. I wish there were more/better videos of songs in ASL for me to use. A lot of the songs were filmed in the '80's. Which isn't bad, but oh, the hair and clothes....it just looks so old! Also, ASL has changed a lot since then, so some songs I have to discard because of outdated signs. And some songs I discard because I just can't even with the '80's look. It's tough finding songs that apply to the lesson, etc. every week, but so far, I think it's been good to use - not all the time, but regularly.

The other thing I've been experimenting with (by government mandate) is only using hands, no voice. This one has been more universally successful. And I can tell, because the kids are remembering the songs better. Cute story as illustration:

A couple nights ago, I was putting Jane to bed. I usually sing "You are my sunshine" before bed, but I thought I'd try to reinforce one of the songs we've learned lately in Primary, and started singing "We'll bring the world His truth." Jane approved - she jumped out of bed and exclaimed, "Start over again, Mom. You sing, and I'll interpret." Well, I didn't even know she knew the word interpret! :) But she stood there and interpreted the song with all her heart, then jumped back in bed. Of course, a four-year old interpretation is high on cuteness and low on understandability...but that's ok!

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Speaking of interpretation, Sam was praying the other day and Martha was interpreting for Uncle Joseph. It seems that Uncle Joseph's vocabulary is getting pretty good, though, as far as the things we tend to pray for. He might not really need that interpretation any more. (Or we need to get better at saying different things during our prayers??) Sam was praying, "Thank you for s-" and then he stopped, and remembered that Dad told him to SHOW things if you don't know the sign, instead of spelling them out. He did something with two hands making O's, and moving them in front of each other. No clue what he was talking about. Nor did Martha. After the prayer, Marriner inquired tactfully about what he was trying to say, as it was clear that none of the other kids had gotten it either. Uncle Joseph piped up, "I think it was the solar eclipse." And he was right! This guy has talent, too bad we can't get him in our branch.

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I have a fear of being asked to interpret. I've never done it, and I'm very worried that I'll be awful, and the person I'm interpreting for will have a horrible experience. I want to be ready for when someone has nobody better to turn to, but how do you practice interpreting without actually interpreting? 

Well, I found a way that worked for me. I was out walking the other day, and downloaded a podcast to listen to. For some reason, I just started signing the podcast. It was great, because I realized that I can keep up with people talking at a formal speed (which is slower than conversation, but still, a great start.) I don't think my grammar is always very good, but I think it would be understandable to someone who was good at English. I'm still afraid of interpreting....but in a less pathetic way... :)

National History Day

 We'd like to congratulate Ellis and Lillian, who got first place in the state of Maryland for Maryland History Day. They won the group documentary category for Middle School. It was a huge accomplishment, and we're so excited for them to go on to National History Day! Of course, National History Day (NHD) is typically held in exotic College Park, Maryland...a whopping 20 miles from our house. :) But it's even better this year, the entire event is virtual. So none of the excitement of travelling to a national competition. But they do win a cool t-shirt!

This project started out as an idea over the summer that Ellis and Lillian could work together on their project. They did a great job over the summer of brainstorming ideas and mediums (you can choose to make a website, display board, documentary, performance or research paper). They struggled a bit more with actually deciding and getting started on the project. So, as always happens, their plan to get a head start on the project melted away, and 2 weeks before the project was due, Mom was nagging, "don't you think you ought to get going??" It was quite the scene of drama and tears. Mom and Dad were insisting that it would take more than a day or two to make the video, and they needed to be panicking NOW! Ellis and Lillian were so mad at each other, they could hardly be in the same room with one another, and were pretty sure they didn't care if they flunked, as long as they didn't have to work on this project any more! Mom was 100% certain that she was never allowing any of her children to work together on a group project ever again. It was pretty miserable. The kids finally turned in their project, and declared that they were D.O.N.E. Even if they won and went to the county competition, they were NOT going to do ANY improvements. Final Answer. Well, Lillian wasn't quite so final, but since Ellis was, she went along.

Here's the video they submitted to the school competition:

Well, of course, they did win. Because their topic is fascinating and their video is really interesting, too. :) And they sat on that for a week. And after a bit, Ellis thought maybe they could make a few *small* edits to their movie. And, eventually, the re-wrote the whole script, re-filmed all the ASL, re-recorded the vocals, re-captioned, and uploaded. Ha!

Here's the second version of their video. In some ways, I didn't like it as much. It was more rushed. (Confession: the new video was too long, so they just bumped the speed up a little.) And they didn't look so grave about the destruction of the language - they smiled! Gasp! Ok, fine, just Lillian smiled. But they did add open captioning, which I thought was a great improvement, and some personal interviews, which were a great strength to their argument. And their finger spelling is a lot more smooth. So that's awesome. The video below is pre-open captioning, so you'll still have to turn on the CC. I couldn't get Ellis to send me the final version. She was afraid I'd post it all over the internet. What a silly thing to be afraid of.... 😆😉

By the time they'd reached the State competition, I think we all knew they'd made something special, and had a decent chance of getting some sort of award. So it was tough when they announced that the awards ceremony would be on a Sunday. We left the decision to Ellis and Lillian, and they both decided that they'd rather observe the Sabbath that participate in the MHD activities for the day. They told their teacher they wouldn't be watching, and if anything interesting happened, let them know. At 2:00, we were all very aware of what time it was. I was on the computer writing a letter to our family when a notification popped up, and my breath caught for a second. And I thought about ignoring it. But it was impossible to ignore, because the subject line was "YOU GOT FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I ran and showed it to Ellis and Lill. Ellis started jumping up and down and cheering, and Lillian just looked confused, because she thought I was showing her something in the letter that I was writing, and couldn't figure out what was so exciting in there. :) We laughed at Lillian, then showed her the email from Mr. Puracken, then we ALL jumped up and down and cheered and screamed, and made Sam run outside covering his ears. 

This time, there wasn't any discussion about if they would improve their video - they'd already thought of things they wanted to revise. So even though the judging feedback had almost nothing to suggest, they went ahead and re-wrote the script, re-recorded the ASL, re-recorded the voice-over, re-captioned, and re-compiled. Everything was beautiful, but then 3 days before the deadline, the computer ate the video and the caption file. ACK! They pulled a recent draft from YouTube and re-edited it, but they lost some of their flexibility, so for example, in some spots the captions cover up the ASL, and they can't change that. They did, however, fix the spelling error Mom caught after they'd submitted (they were allowed to re-submit.) So here's their almost-final version (except for the spelling error.) Again, some things I thought were better in the previous version, but I think this is a pretty good submission, and they can be proud of it. They did great research, and their signing is very clear. Good job, girls!! Thanks to all our friends who helped them.

Uncle Joseph arrives!

 Hello, everyone! I'm feeling much more cheerful than the last time I wrote, ha ha. We recorded "Love is Spoken Here" for stake conference. It was simple, the little kids made a musical friend that will last their whole lives, and it's a perfectly fine musical offering. Yay! Things worked out!! The only thing that makes me a little sad still is that we have this song in ASL - and all the hearing people will love it. But it's not really as great of an offering for the actual ASL users - they've already seen these kids sign this song. I wish we could have presented something new for them. But we couldn't, and the kids are worth watching again, so it's ok.

We used a video of the kids from last mother's day. I was shocked at how much the kids have changed in the last year. They're all so big and mature now! It's been wonderful seeing them again at church.

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A big and exciting thing has happened in our house - Marriner's little brother made a PROFESSIONAL ULTIMATE TEAM in DC and is living with us for the summer. Because "professional" means they pay you, not that they pay you WELL. :) So Uncle Joseph is here living the dream, and we're really enjoying getting to know a brother who is 16 years younger than us - he's closer in age to Lige than to us! He was 5 when we got married. 

Uncle Joseph does not know ASL, alas. As we've thought about how to balance the need to keep learning and practicing ASL with the need to not be rude to our guest, we've decided to go ahead and keep praying in sign language. For food prayers, we just trust he can figure out what we're saying. For family prayers, we assign one of the younger kids to interpret. The reason for this is that the little kids really know more than they'll admit, and maybe if we get them trying to say what they see out loud, they'll get better? They usually miss about half of what is in the prayer, usually because they'll just get behind. Or miss one sign, and their brain is hung-up on that word, and then miss the rest of the sentence. I sympathize, because I'm not a very good interpreter, and do the same thing. 

Joseph, alas, doesn't get to go to church with us. But we're lucky - the YSA ward shares a building with us, and meets right after us. So Joseph can ride up to church with us, wait 2 hours, to to church, and ride home with Marriner when he finishes his meetings. Yay! His bishop caught Marriner last week after church and said, "Thanks for sending us your brother for the summer! There's....quite an age difference between you...." :)

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We started in-person church last week! It was a little stressful leading up to it. But was really fun once it started. We have the kids spread out across the entire room - I feel bed for the Capitol Hill ward, it will be a long time before they will be able to fit their Primary in our little Primary room. But we could fit! For singing time, we learned a Mother's day song all in one week. (We'll Bring the World His Truth. Because it talks about moms. And we learned it last year, so it would be fast to learn. Teehee... )

On Mother's day, we got up to sing, and I realized I'd forgotten my tablet or phone to play the music on! Ack, moment of panic! Brother Wardle perceived the problem and hopped up to use his phone. Then we remembered that the cord was making loud sporadic popping noises, and it wasn't a good idea to use the phone anyway. Of course, the fact that I have several children who play the piano didn't occur to me, either. Who knows if there was a songbook anywhere nearby, anyway. So anyway, we decided to go ahead and sign a capella. In other words, just sign the song without music. It was a really interesting experience - and I'm wondering if that isn't a better way to do songs in sacrament meeting. The kids did a really great job, and all the focus was on the signs, no distractions. 

I was really focused on leading the song well and making eye contact with the Sunbeams to keep them with me. But after church, everyone came up to me and said, "Wow, Sam! He signed with so much emotion! It was so great!" I'd totally missed it. But yeah, Sam was amazing.  He's really grown up SO MUCH this last year!

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We had a fun singing time last week, but my kids came home and said they missed singing out-loud. We're not allowed to sing yet, so we played the songs on the tablet and signed along. I thought a lot about why it would be more fun for a kid to sing than sign. My teenagers love expressively signing, but the kids not so much. I thought, maybe the fun of singing is that you can hear yourself making something pretty, and so you like it. So I'm going to try using some technology to improve feedback to the kids. I tried getting the TV from the library and playing the song on the computer, to make it more visual. Alas, the remote for the TV was missing. But I found it after singing time. I'm excited to explore different ways to teach singing more visually. But it's definitely harder to coordinate with all the different tech stuff. Harder to put a lesson together. We'll see how it goes. As with everything this year - is technology the answer? 

Creative grief

 “I loved my friend

He went away from me

There's nothing more to say

The poem ends,

Soft as it began-

I loved my friend.”

― Langston Hughes

About a month ago, we were asked by the Stake music chairman to record a song for stake conference. We chuckled at the email - obviously the person didn't know us personally. She asked us to sign a song, and if it was possible to have someone play the piano, that would make it even better. We laughed - we're very good at the piano in our house, but we thought we ought to have someone deaf do the signing. We debated for a long time what song to sing, but I advocated for a beautiful song about the Atonement, named "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands." It's a beautifully visual song, it would translate well into ASL, and I felt a desire to "preach of Christ". We called a deaf friend, who also thought the song would be beautiful in ASL, and we submitted it for approval. The stake's standard for songs in stake conference is "A song from the hymnbook, or one that has been sung in General Conference." And our song had been sung in General Conference. And it was approved! Woohoo!!

So, our family worked on learning a choir number, and in the meantime, Minnie Mae worked on translating the song to ASL. Recording the song for stake conference turned out to be much more complex than just showing up and singing. First, we needed to put the singers and the signers in the movie together, so video editing. We needed to give the signers a version of the song to work with before we had it all learned. So we recorded the song, then I went back and re-recorded the piano accompaniment at the same speed, so we'd always be the same speed as the signers. Then we worked on getting a good recording of us singing the song. Of course, it takes several tries when you're working with 4-year olds. The first day, we sang beautifully, and the second the song ended (well, the second BEFORE the song ended), Jane blurted out, "I need to go comb my hair!" The second day we talked about staying quiet after the song ends, and just as we finished, a rooster alarm went off. The third day, someone was grumpy and singing silly on purpose. And on it goes. After we got a good audio version, we were going to record the video (in our church clothes) separately, because it just seems like the odds of getting a recording where we look and sound good simultaneously are rather low...don't you think?

We'd also planned to get some of the other branch members involved with the signing - a "branch choir" of sorts. So we were editing movies of the ASL with captions to send to people tonight when the phone rang. It was the stake music chairman, and she was calling to tell us that the General Authority who was visiting our stake conference had asked us to change songs to a well-known one from the hymnbook. Our choice, as long as it's well-known.

Well, I'm not gonna lie - some tears followed. All the emotions - shock, anger, frustration, grief, disbelief - took their turns marching across the stage of my mind. Deep inside, I knew that things were fine, and that the Spirit would guide. But intuitively, I just seemed to know that I needed some time to brush away all the sad. So I let myself grieve for the beautiful song we'd worked on that didn't have a purpose any more. 

This morning, I woke up ready to rise to the challenge. (Mostly - I still have my moments, ha ha...) We feel the Spirit helping us come up with good options that will help people feel the Spirit at Stake Conference. None of them are everything we'd hoped the song would be, but maybe it's just what someone needs.

One of the big questions that this experience has brought up is, did we make a mistake the first time? We prayed and thought we were following the guidance of the Holy Ghost as we picked the first song. Sometimes, the process of revelation is bumpier than we expect. But I'd love to get the "heavenly analysis" of what happened here. 

We're still planning on recording "Behold the Wounds" because if you've already learned a whole song, you need to use it for something. But, "knowing how way leads on to way", we'll see if it ever gets finished. If it does, I'll put it here so you can enjoy it. 

Somewhat ironically, but I'm so grateful for it, the thing that has been the most comforting to me when I start to feel sad is...the words to the song that was canceled. I think I'll just end with that. I hope you feel Jesus's love as you read it. I know I have!

1. Behold the wounds in Jesus’ hands,

The marks upon His side,

Then ponder who He meant to save

When on the cross He died.

We cannot see the love of God

Which saves us from the fall,

Yet know that Christ from wood and nails

Built mansions for us all.

 

2. Behold the outstretched hands of Christ,

Our Lord, who came to save,

Whose love and grace redeem our souls

And lift us from the grave.

Though bruised and battered as we stray

His guiding hands caress,

He washes and anoints with oil

Then in His arms we rest.

 

3. Behold the wounds in Jesus hands,

Look to your Lord and live.

He yearns to bless you with His love

And all your sins forgive.

Oh, empty is the heart of man

When it is filled with sin.

Come, open wide your broken heart

And let your Savior in!

4. Behold His wounded hands and feet!

Come touch, and see, and feel

The wounds and marks that you may know

His love for you is real.

Then as you fall to worship Him

And wash His feet in tears,

Your Savior takes you in His arms

And quiets all your fears.

I don't think he's doing the taxes...

 I'm just sitting upstairs working and Marriner is downstairs doing the taxes. He suddenly laughs at something. I'm about to call out, "What's so funny?" (We're not very far apart from each other, after all.) Then I think, "It's probably not the taxes that are funny, he's probably on the phone." And I peek down the stairs, and indeed, there he is signing away to someone. Having a conversation that is apparently somewhat humorous. :)

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Our branch is starting to talk about re-opening in-person Primary (and all the other organization meetings). Marriner is very enthusiastic about it - he sees the people who are struggling spiritually right now. I'm very un-enthusiastic about it. It's not immediately obvious to me how this can work with wearing masks, people having to stay home if they're sick, and no singing. I'm tired of changes, and would rather wait a few more months until most adults have been vaccinated, and it feels safer. But, we had a meeting last week to try to hammer out a plan, and we think we have a way that will work.

As we are starting to face returning to church full-time, I've realized that my younger kids are NOT ready for this, language wise. And that's a little frustrating, because we've worked a lot this last year on keeping up our ASL. But kids change so fast. They can forget things in weeks or months if they don't use it a lot. And even though we've worked on some things a lot, there are other things that we've let slide. And none of them have had a conversation with a deaf person in over a year! 

As a Primary presidency, one of our goals is to make Primary a fun and enjoyable place for the kids. We want it to be a positive place they'll want to come to. And I'm sorta sure that my kids are going to struggle and not like it anyway, just because they are so weak in ASL right now. I'd love to be proven wrong. But I'm nervous.

The other complication is that a non-signing person (I can't mention names yet, the news isn't common knowledge) is moving in with us next week for the summer. So that's going to make it a lot harder to practice.

Are we going to get through? I guess we probably will :) Even if there are tears and pulled-out hair in the process. :) 

And now Marriner is done with talking on the phone, so we're heading to bed. Wish us luck!

Leading the music

 Lillian led the music in Sacrament meeting today. She's found that she REALLY enjoys signing music, and that she seems to have a bit of a talent for it, so she was excited for the opportunity today. 

She went to the stand, plugged in the tablet with the music, pressed play, and started to take her face mask off. But when the music started, it blasted us all out of our seats at max volume. Lillian jumped and tried to turn the volume down, but her face mask caught on her glasses and sent her glasses flying. She grabbed the tablet, turned the music off, then fumbled for her glasses and mask, finally got everything in place and re-started with great poise. 

We all love seeing her happy, enthusiastic face leading the music, though between the first and second verse she let out a big, silent "phew!" as she was still recovering from the shock at the beginning. 

I guess she's only 12, it's ok if she gets a *little* rattled with something like that, eh? :)

My older children had their international music debut yesterday. They were seen performing by millions of people all over the world! Pretty exciting!

Ok, so it was only for like 10 seconds. But it was a really exciting 10 seconds! You can see them in "Hope of Israel" starting a little after minute 59. 

So now be honest - how many of my kids did you see in the song? Because as soon as the song was over, we started getting messages from friends, who had seen anywhere between 1 and 4...

The correct answer is 3. Lige, Ellis and Lillian were there with another girl from a different branch or ward. And then Lillian came one another time toward the end. Which I think was what a lot of people saw, because most of the people who messaged me after the broadcast said, "I saw Lillian!" or, "Was that Lillian I just saw?"

The kids had gone to the church for a watch party, so when they got home, I laughingly told them about the funny thing going on. Just then, my phone buzzed, and the message was literally, "It was so cool to see Lillian in the music festival!" This from one of Lige's good friends who's moved across the country. Then we got a voice mail from Grandma that someone in her ward had told her one of her grandkids was in the music festival. It was late, and we laughed like we were watching Monty Python waaayyyy past midnight. Marriner decided to put it to the test. He took a screenshot of the kids:

He texted it to his siblings with the caption, "Lillian did such a great job in the Youth Music Festival tonight!" And we watched the responses come back. "Wow!", "Great job!"....finally, the next morning, one sibling was bold enough to ask, "Wait, I'm confused...aren't 3 of your kids in the song?" 

So of course, we had to make a meme to commemorate the hilarious (and fun) day:

Then I hugged Lillian good night (oh wait, I have other children?) and we all slept very well :)

----------------

Seriously, though, yesterday was a tough day at school. By the end of the day, I'd made 3 kids cry, and 3 kids had made me mad enough to take an unscheduled walk around the neighborhood. Ending the day laughing our heads off was medicine for the soul. So thanks, everyone who contributed to that :)

My favorite part of the song, though, was that they had President Nelson performing with them - how cool is that, that they got to sing with the prophet? Did that just make anyone else geek out? We have the coolest prophet!

Primary

 Hi, everyone,

We reached one year of coronavirus this week. 365 days of various restrictions, disappointments, upheavals. There have been so many good things, too. But I just want to take a moment to pause and acknowledge that this been hard for all of us in various ways on various levels. I'm so grateful for light at the end of the tunnel!

I like what someone posted on Facebook. Instead of wishing things would get back to normal, hope for things to go forward to better. 

I think my kids are getting better at sign language in one regard - they're learning to pay attention when people are signing. Sunday in Primary, we usually have two options: have class in English, or have it in ASL with a treat at the end. They generally pick ASL, but then they "forget" and talk, or don't pay attention, etc. Yesterday, I told them if they wanted to do ASL, they had to lead it. If they talked or didn't pay attention, then I'd just go to English. Boy, the really rose to the challenge! We had a really amazing lesson all in ASL! We discussed some scriptures from D&C 25, which would be tough enough for kids in English. It was funny and interesting watching the kids try to sign the scriptures we were discussing. It was funny and interesting watching me try to figure out how to explain words they didn't know without talking. (Cleave? Wherefore?) Anyway, I was impressed by them. And then we went to English to sing, because we wanted to sing lots of "songs of the heart" and English is, like, you know, our language of the heart.

But the actual cute part of my life that made me sit down and write today is Jane, for whom the Primary lesson was completely over her head, but she sat nicely (ish) on the couch anyway with her special blanket, sucking her thumb. She was especially cute signing the opening song with her thumb in her mouth. :) Go ahead and try that, it's not really easy! I think that pretty much represents this whole experience for her - she can do hard things, but really, she's still a little kid.

Codenames

 A funny thing about this pandemic - when it comes to date night, I usually feel like inviting friends to play games by zoom, but Marriner usually feels like bumming around together and being off the computer for a bit. We found this out a few weeks ago, after several weeks of me planning game nights and Marriner planning movie nights or walks. I guess Marriner gets more social interaction during the day - and definitely more zoom time! So now that we've figured this out, of course, I've been planning very nice, computer-less dates, and this week, Marriner planned a social activity! Ha! He set up a game night with friends from the Branch. This, of course, requires some creative thinking, because not only do you have to be able to play remotely, but you have to be able to still see each other to communicate while you're playing. Marriner decided to try Codenames, which is one of our favorite games. And some friends had recently shown us how to play it online. Woohoo!

Codenames originally had a grid with different words on it. One person on each team takes turns giving their teammates a 1-word clue to guess which words are their team's. Later, a picture version was invented, and that's the version someone gave us years ago. Marriner decided that pictures would match the ASL style well, so so much for the online version, and he set up a camera to show the tiles on zoom. 

Well, it turns out that it didn't really take on an ASL flavor. We said your clue could be one word OR one sign. But every time someone used a sign, they had to spell which word for that sign they meant, because the sign was so ambiguous. For example, one person signed "statue" and the rest of us thought he meant "shape." They're the same sign, you figure out the difference by context. I thought about this contextual nature of ASL while we were playing. I wonder if a group of all-ASL people would play different than we did? For us, there were many English-speakers, and the deaf people were strong English users, so the ASL didn't match the specific thing we were trying to say. But I wondered if another group, say, of people who grew up just using ASL, would really jive with the visualness of the game and be really amazing at it? But as I thought about it, I decided that the contextuality of ASL would kill that - because there are such huge differences in meaning based on the context. Which, of course, there is none in a 1-word clue!

So, we played a very English-y game of Codenames in ASL, and had a blast. We played girls against boys, and it was very evenly matched. At the very end, after 4 games, it all came down to the last tile, where the girls guessed the assassin instead of the secret agent, and the boys won. It used every bit of technology all of us had - zoom on the computer, the game board on another device. But it worked!

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Saturday, Ellis and I took the kids of my ministering sister to the park, just to do something nice for her. The idea was to give her time to get some work done, but we stayed and chatted for like 45 minutes before we left, so I don't know if we came out net-zero or not. :) While we were chatting, I just felt a big emotion bubbling up that I can best describe as...I dunno, gushiness? I just wanted to blurt out to this family, whose oldest is in Kindergarten, that they're just amazing, and they're doing awesome, and I'm so happy and proud to be their friends. And I totally had this flash back to when we had young kids, and how baffled I was by people saying things like that to us. But it's for real! (Though seriously, it made me feel old...) Maybe once you've been through the fire of young parenthood, you're pretty sure it's so hard, nobody else in the world will want to do it. So when you see someone trying, you're just so happy that the future is going to happen, after all? Or maybe you're really gushing to yourself, as you see yourself in them, telling yourself to keep going, you're going to make it after all. 

This happened again this week, as I watched Marriner's counselor and his wife passing off their baby as he conducted the meeting and she led the music. These young families, they're doing amazing things. And they're doing it in two languages, and navigating all the extra obstacles that deafness brings. And I just have this urge to gush, and tell them I just think they're amazing. Which, really, means I'm getting old. I'm ok with that.

------------

A few months ago, we required all family prayers to be in ASL, because the younger kids would never sign. They'd just sorta stare at their plate during dinner, hoping the conversation would happen over their heads. This worked very well at getting people to sign, but the next step was getting the little kids to pay attention to what people were signing. So one day, I asked the kids if anyone could tell me something someone said in the prayer. Of course, they couldn't, but the next prayer, they could...

It worked very well for a while, then Martha got tired of it and zoned off. Sam is still doing ok at paying attention, depending on the day. But Jane LOVES this game. Generally, about the time someone starts signing, "In the name of..." Jane signs "AMEN!" (or not...) and then shouts, "I can tell you what was in the prayer!" So then we tell Jane she has to wait until the WHOLE prayer is over, make the praying person do the end of the prayer again, in which Jane waits about 3 seconds longer, then yells even louder, "I CAN TELL YOU WHAT WAS IN THE PRAYER!" Ok, Jane, what was it... Sometimes, she says something simple like, "I saw missionary!" But sometimes, she actually understands waaayyyy more than we thought she could. It's fun seeing her, with her little kid inherent language learning capabilities.

Actually, she did this on Sunday - they were announcing a branch activity with popcorn on Saturday, and Jane shouted out, "I saw popcorn!" Ha ha!! I'm glad she was paying attention...and I'm sure everyone else who heard her was, too :)

We figured out how to sign coronavirus today!

 Guys. Ten and a half months later, my little kids FINALLY figured out the sign for coronavirus today. Despite seeing it pretty much daily for the last....probably nine and a half months...

It took a while for a sign for coronavirus to come about. There were a few different signs we saw at first, and it probably took a month before the consensus was formed. So the first month of the pandemic, we just used "CV" as our shorthand (ha!) for coronavirus. But once we learned the actual sign, all the old people switched over. The little kids doggedly stuck with "CV" until this week. And for some reason, Martha started using the actual sign. Today, Sam saw it and joked about Martha praying for cheese (the signs have...some...similarities...sorta....) (But Sam has never been bothered by things like that, his main goal is to be silly.) And BOOM - the sign is now popular. Everyone used it in their prayer. 

Kid psychology on display here :) I wonder what other signs I should joke about to get my kids to use...hmmm....

Snow Day

 Do you know how long it's been since it snowed in DC? That would be 711 days, per the Washington Post. (As measured by at least 0.5" being recorded in the District). (Because less than a half inch really doesn't count if you want to play in the snow, which is what we want.) So today was a great day! We had a good solid 2 inches of snow, at least on the grass. The sidewalks didn't accumulate much on our side of the street, though our neighbors across (north facing) got some snow to shovel.

Snowy weather is a complex thing in DC, which I know most of the country doesn't understand. But despite owning snowplows and large silos (sheds?) of salt, DC strongly prefers to just shut down if it snows. We know it is very Southern behavior, but the truth is, snow is like Russian Roulette around here. The forecasts are tricky, and if they're wrong, lots of people get in trouble. Because it's a huge metropolitan area, and it only takes a few crashes on the freeway before millions of people are stuck on the road for hours. Believe me - about 5 years ago, we had several friends spend the night in their cars when a snowstorm ended up being much worse than expected, the roads turned to ice, and cars that got stuck were abandoned on the road. Thousands of people waited for the sun to come up and melt the ice, because the police literally couldn't do anything. Oh yeah, and there was that one friend of ours who drove to work, but couldn't drive home because the roads were so messed up. So he took the metro to try to get to where his wife could pick him up. But then the metro shut down because it was too dangerous to run the trains, stranding him close to our house. He called and asked Marriner for help. Marriner drove a mile towards the metro, got stuck and couldn't move, pushed his car off the road, walked home, and called our friend to say sorry, couldn't help. The friend ended up walking several miles to the church and sleeping in the clerk's office. For a few hours, I think he got in like at 3am. 

The thing about DC is that the temperature is often close to freezing this time of year. If the air is just a little above freezing, we get rain. If it's below freezing, we get snow. But if it hovers right about freezing, we get ice, which is literally the worst. Sometimes we get snow that melts, then re-freezes. Sometimes we get plain rain that freezes. Either way, it's going to turn into ice and be nasty to drive on. Just today, Marriner and I were remembering what it was like back in UT when you make sure not to drive too slow on the snow so you don't get stuck. Because the snow doesn't automatically turn into ice the minute you touch it. Those were the days.

ANYWAY, all of this is to say that things tend to shut down here on snow days. Especially now, where we're sorta shut down anyway, there's pretty much a don't go out attitude. 

Today (Sunday) was a snow day. We woke up to a coating of snow, and it was supposed to grow throughout the day. Now the forecast had started as 4-12 inches and been downgraded to 3-5 inches, so the storm seemed to be under-performing. But I was sorta in the "Why not shut down and just not worry about it?" camp. Marriner maintains his true Utah roots. He didn't think things looked very bad, and we could get to church just fine. Especially since we hadn't met in person for 3 weeks in a row (covid exposure and stake conference) and some people had been waiting for a long time for the sacrament. I did not like this idea - I had planned my schedule for the morning around leaving for church (the family room) at 10:20, not 9:45. But Marriner was right - the roads looked completely fine, snow was barely sticking at all. So we went to church. And the roads were absolutely not dangerous. There was just us, the missionaries and one elderly person there. We watched the service on zoom in the chapel, then had the sacrament together. Marriner was really touched by the unique service. I confess, a non-related issue related to some children's behavior kept me from enjoying the moment. Why do some kids hold grudges for so long, anyway? But in the end, I was glad we went. I was even glad we took the grudge-miesters. 

Tomorrow is back to normal life. Despite having 100% distance education right now in our school district, we get a 2-hr early dismissal tomorrow because of the snow. Now that's more like what I expect from this area :) 

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Can I just muse for a second about why my kids rub their tummy to sign please, instead of their chest? Are kids' chests just so small, they can't easily access them? Do they just not distinguish between the two, since they're flat all the way down? Are their cute, protruding tummies easier to reach? Does it have to do with their arm-to-body-length ratio being different than an adult's? Whatever the reason, my little kids all rub their tummies to say please. Sometimes they get going so fast when they say "Please bless" that they catch their shirts on their fingers and pull them up to their chins (both the fingers and the shirt!) It's ok, they're little, nobody minds a 3-year-old belly button. Their funny location is even funnier when they're blessing the food. It looks like "Yummy, I'm so hungry - bless the food!" :)

Ok, ok, enough musing, Marriner finished his work, and I'm going to bed. Happy Snow Day, everyone!

Sunday at home

 We stayed home for church this week. Not because of the coronavirus pandemic, but because of the political outbreak infecting our area. We live far enough away from DC that we are rarely affected by downtown drama. We just stay home and act normal.  Except now, our church building is downtown, so Marriner had to consider whether it was safe to go to church. I never thought I'd be in a situation like that, but here we are with so many reasons to consider whether it's safe to go to church, we don't even know what to do with ourselves! Ha ha. And Sigh. And Groan.

ANYWAY. We had a lovely zoom church - Jane loves those. Right at the beginning, Marriner got a text from someone at the church, who hadn't seen the announcement that church was canceled. So with some consideration, we invited him to come to our house (which is one of the closest in the branch to the church building) and at least get the sacrament with our family. He showed up right as the talks were ending, then we went straight into the sacrament. But with all the bustle, we'd forgotten to plan for a sacrament song, and we felt some urgency to get the sacrament done quickly (just trying to minimize risk). So Marriner grabbed Ellis to play the piano and Lillian to lead the music - Lige had just washed his hands to pass the sacrament. And then, oh yeah, we need to do the song in ASL...that means we need a music stand for Lill, and oh yeah, does she know this song in ASL? And she didn't. But she acted very professionally, and just quietly looked over the song, then interpreted it herself. And guess what, it was really lovely. She did such a good job. I have no idea what good this talent she's developing will do her in her life - it doesn't come up much except in unique circumstances. But at least it will be something interesting to tell her kids. "Did you know that when I was a kid, I was a pretty good ASL music interpreter?" Ha ha!

Martha had a funny moment covering up a mistake the other day. You know those moments when you go to pray, and you automatically say, "Thank you for the food..." and then remember that you're not eating right now, and feel silly. Martha totally did that. She started to sign food:

www.lifeprint.com

And quickly catching her mistake, she pivoted immediately, flinging her fingers up into the sign for "mom":

www.lifeprint.com

 She carried on as if nothing had happened, "Thank you mom's finger is getting better..." Not bad, Martha, not bad at all. :)

Comprehension vs recollection

 We were driving today and Lillian asked a question about something going on in Young Women. Ellis said, "You know the answer to that! I told you about it at our meeting last week!" Lillian claimed no memory of it.

What Ellis doesn't yet realize is that there are levels of language proficiency. At first, you don't know what the heck is going on, then you sorta get the topic, but not the details. Then you get the details, but it takes every ounce of your brain power to get there. Then you finally reach the point where you get it all without intense concentration.

Lillian was operating in level 3: get the details with all the brain power you have. I think I spent most of my mission there. And the reason I think that is because I'm a lot like Lillian - I understood what was going on around me, but there are a lot of things I don't remember now, years later. I think when you're using all your energy to understand, you don't make it to a deeper level of comprehension that tucks that information away for future use. 

This is useful when you're the Branch President's wife, which is a phase of life most people don't really want to remember. Just kidding - that was 100% a joke. All the parts of this job I want to forget are the parts not conducted in ASL, so it doesn't even apply. :) 

Sam was baptized yesterday, and I've been pondering if he'll remember his baptism better or worse because it was in ASL. I'm pretty sure he'll remember the messages worse - but do any of you actually remember anything about the talks or blessings given at your baptism? If you're lucky, you remember the treats at the end, right? But maybe the novelty of watching his brother and dad sign the prayer and confirmation blessing to him will help him remember the day a little better, if not the things people said. Or maybe the novelty of wearing a mask the whole time, dealing with Zoom, or being the only people in the room... So you know, lots to make it memorable :) Maybe all those things cancel out to make one fairly normal baptism...hmmm...probably not!

The big meltdown

 Yesterday, I started new year - new me. I'd fallen off the Primary bandwagon a bit because of adding in Sunday School to our schedule and the fact that getting the kids to do Primary is a lot of energy, and I was sorta tired. So we skipped it (or did a really lazy version of it) for a few weeks. But yesterday we had a real Primary, and we even did it in sign language! The kids were excited because they got to move up to their new classes! Yes, Jane is actually officially in Primary now! She's out of nursery, and a proud Sunbeam. Not coincidentally, we've sung "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" like 10 times as a family since Sunday...or, as Jane called it, "You are my Sunbeam". 

Martha was already in the CTR class, but she didn't know that was the name of it. Sam moved up to the Valiant class. So they're all in "new" classes now. Which makes absolutely no difference in home church. But it still made people excited to be growing up, so we celebrated. We taught Sam and Martha the theme songs for their classes. (Choose the Right Way and I will be Valiant) on the drive to church. So in Primary, we let kids pick what song they wanted to sing, and Jane of course picked Sunbeam. Then it was Martha's turn, and she said, "CTR!" and I signed, "Voice off - how do you say that in sign language?" And to my astonishment, she just melted down in a huge tantrum. "I don't know how to sign that!" Uhhh.... Ellis came upstairs right then and looked at me like, "What's up?" and I signed back, "Martha can't figure out how to sign 'CTR.'" Of course, Martha did not see this clue, because she was busy crying. So then Jane blurts out "C (signing C while saying it) - T...Mom, how do you sign T? - R (with the sign)" Martha also ignores this clue, and starts throwing a real fit, so she gets put in bed, and we sing the CTR song without her. Cuz Jane asked for it, in sign language.

If it makes you feel any better, Martha came back about 10 minutes later, much calmer. She never asked for the CTR song, but Jane asked for it again, so Martha got to sing it. If you hadn't noticed, Martha's in an anti-hard-work stage right now, and even if it's NOT hard work, she'll get mad if she THINKS it is. I think this is mostly just from the stress of online school, and I'm sure it will work itself out soon enough. But in the meantime, it makes for some pretty funny situations in the house - like melting down over how to sign "CTR." Well, she'll look back and laugh at it someday - which is why I'm writing it down :) Love ya, Martha! Even though you make Primary tough right now!

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On a related note - fingerspelling. We should do it more with the little kids. But when a kid can't read, it takes a mighty leap of faith to think they'll figure out what B-R-E-N-T means, since it's not a word that comes up all the time. To be honest, I'm not sure that a hearing kid will understand fingerspelling before they learn to read. I know deaf kids do. It's just the difference between primary and secondary language. So, we don't emphasize fingerspelling a lot. As you can tell by my terrible fingerspelling :) The best fingerspeller in our house is probably Sam, who upon learning to read suddenly found it wayyyy easier to just spell everything. My friends tell me this is pretty normal, and just the worst when it's your kid doing it. Fortunately, Sam is growing out of it (though Martha clearly is not growing into it yet!)

ANYWAY...we have a lot of friends and family with coronavirus right now. So we're praying for a lot of people. In the past, we've just used their first initial instead of spelling their name, and everyone just knows who we're talking about. But we're getting enough people on our list now that it's becoming more and more impractical. I'm thinking at some point here, we're going to have to break down and spell people's names! Either that, or just use their initial and mouth their names really big :)