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?