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 :)