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.
