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 :)

Thankful!

I wrote this just after THanksgiving, but I forgot to hit "publish" on it. Sorry about that!

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A few weeks ago, I had this fabulous idea that my kids should all do a musical number in Sacrament meeting. I know, lots of you can't sing in church right now. But guess what - you can SIGN in church! Neener neener :) 

Actually, I forgot that you can't sing in church, and told my kids that some of them should sing the song and some of them should sign. Alas, the idea went over like a lead balloon. The big kids thought that was soooo little kid (ok, the song really is a little kid song, so they weren't TOTALLY wrong...) and the little kids didn't want to get up in public and sing. Sigh.

But the next day, I came downstairs and found Lillian fiddling with the song and starting to interpret it. So, I ventured to ask the Branch President if we could do it in church, if we actually got it together. 

This is not a trivial question. There's a basic rule in ASL that some things should be done by deaf people, and some things should definitely NOT be done by noobs (new signers). Interpreting songs is somewhere in that area. We've sung songs and had someone else interpret the song before. And we've signed in a group, like with the Primary. But we've never performed a song interpreted by ourselves with no deaf person involved before. So Marriner consulted his music experts, and Lillian was approved. Really, it's not that different from a traditional ward - unless the Bishop is very musical, he'll ask the ward music chairman to make sure the music is appropriate. But it caused much apprehension in this case, and great excitement to be approved!

Oh, except for Sam, who did NOT want to sing in church. But then we remembered that we actually can't sing in church...soo...we recorded the singing ahead of time. It was still a huge chore to get Sam to join in, but I'm glad he did. He has a lovely voice. And Lillian did such a great job of signing the song. I'm glad we got it to work out!

Several people commented on how Lillian's super-big smile made them so happy. It turns out, she was emulating our friend Jamila, our favorite interpreter for the church. She always makes you just so excited to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ just by watching her smile and enthusiasm when she signs a song. Lillian wanted to do that for everyone who watched her. It's wonderful to have such amazing role models! I'm not sure if this link will work for you, but if it does, you can see what I'm talking about here: https://www.facebook.com/jamilahubb/videos/10157391380760069

The tragic tale of the broken finger

 Guys, this story does not teach the right lessons at all. :)

On Monday, we said our family prayer, then Jane said her personal prayer with me. Jane and Martha have been really horsing around before, during and after prayer lately, and we've had some...strong...words from parents about it. So everyone was relatively calm. But after Jane's prayer, she did a little bronco buck and her knee came down on my pinkie finger, which was on the ground pushing me up. I heard a pop....dang it. (No, the moral of the story is NOT to skip praying!) And it hurt! The kids ran for ice, and Marriner just held me while I cried for a few minutes - I'd been having one of those irrationally emotional days already, and this was just the icing on the cake. But at some point I realized that the pop I'd heard...that must have meant something. So off to the urgent care we went. And guess what - it was broken! We've taken bets for years on which of my kids would be first to break a bone - I just didn't think it would be MY bone! 

The urgent care told me to go see an orthopedic dr, which was funny since I was already looking for an orthopedic doctor for Lillian! She's had a nagging pinkie injury from playing violin! So on Tuesday, she and I walked up to the office of the orthopedic doctor together. They handed me a form to explain that I was accompanying a minor and therefore allowed in the building with her. (Covid-19 restrictions.) I was like, nope, I'm a patient, too! Everyone thought our matching pinkie splints were adorable. I seriously think we made their day - it must be a little tiring working in a doctor's office right now. Well, I guess we're glad to help where we can!

The plus side of this is that I have an excuse not to do most of the chores I really didn't want to do anyway. :)

The down side is that I can't play the piano or sign. So yeah, church tomorrow...can't play, sing or sign the music...well, I guess I can sign a little, just sorta gimpy. And that's just how my worship will have to be!

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Merry Christmas! Since I wrote that ^^, Christmas has come and gone. Church was canceled because someone with Covid was in the building the week before, so they had to close and sanitize. I truly missed Christmas Sunday with no organ music. 

Our Sunday School class had a remarkable moment, though. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Deaf people from all over the country have visited our Sunday School class by zoom. This week, a brother who worked with us in the temple before and is learning ASL joined in. We were discussing Moroni's statement in Moroni 10:8 "And again I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God. The new brother asked about the sign for deny - we were using one sign, but the ASL Book of Mormon used a different sign.

"Well," the teacher replies, "let's ask Minnie Mae." Minnie Mae translated the entire Book of Mormon herself, and is one of the people who drops in to our class sometimes. I mean, what are the odds that when you ask a question about word choice in the Book of Mormon, the person who made that choice is there to explain it! What luck!

Minnie Mae basically said, "Gosh, I don't remember why I chose that sign over the other sign." Ok, well, that part was disappointing. :) But then she added a testimony that hit both me and Marriner like electricity. "I can tell you that I studied and considered every single word in the whole book - every it, the, or an. (Here she showed herself flipping through dictionaries and reference books - yikes, pre-internet! Tough job!) And I will tell you this - there is no way that book is not true. Don't deny the gifts of God."

(Now it's worth noting that the ASL Book of Mormon was recorded 25 years ago, and the language has evolved a lot since then. Most of the time when someone asks that question, the answer is, "the language has changed." But it wasn't in this case!)

Thanks, Minnie Mae, for your special testimony. I hope I always remember the incredible gift the Book of Mormon is in my life.

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A funny thing about Zoom - it knows who to spotlight by who is talking. So when you're using sign language, it just spotlights whoever has the most background noise (No, it's not always us! We usually keep our mic on mute! Tee hee...) But when people are joining on a small screen, you really need that spotlight to be able to see the person who is signing clearly enough to understand them...soo...our church meetings are now a paragon of order and politeness. When you want to answer a question, you raise your hand, then the teacher manually spotlights you, and THEN you can answer. And by the time everyone waited that long to know what you had to say, it had better be profound. :) It like those meeting with a visiting apostle where they pass the microphone around so people can answer questions! Except, you know, with only 10 people!

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Ok, one last story, then I'll quit. My sister came over to visit the other day. She lives about an hour away, and she joined us for lunch. It was my daughter's turn to invite someone to pray. Now our family has been praying only in ASL for a few months. Said daughter noticed that her aunt would obviously have to pray in English (or Tagalog - which I would have been happy with!) and ingeniously invited her to say the prayer. You could see the delight at her trickiness in her eyes :) Aunt Nicole graciously accepted the invitation, and then an awkward moment ensued. Then, "So guys, usually when you're about to pray, you close your eyes and bow your head..." We all looked at each other a little confused, which wasn't hard, because, yes, we all did have our eyes open still. Then we realized that our habits have changed in the last 3 years. She's right, usually people do close their eyes as soon as they expect a prayer. But not us! We keep our eyes open, just in case the person who is going to pray says it in sign language! :) (Even if they announce, "I'll say the prayer in English" we don't believe them. Many a time someone has said that, then without thought jumped into a prayer in sign language! Or vice-versa!) As soon as they say, "Dear Heavenly Father..." we all close our eyes and bow our heads. Most of the time, a couple of late eye closers don't stick out, but we were busted this time :) So we all closed our eyes. But it was tough, an irrational feeling of, "but what if I miss the first part of the prayer?" was still niggling at me. :) 

And that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods the last few months. We're a mess, but it's a fun mess!

Understanding the Sacrament

 We started "normal" church again this week. Not really normal, but we have in-person Sacrament meeting every week now! It's so crazy! It seems like so long ago that we woke up and drove to church...

Our new schedule has Sacrament meeting in the (gasp) morning! Ok, 10:30 isn't THAT early...but it does cause a showering crisis in our family. Years and years ago, we quit doing showers and baths on Saturday, because the kids always managed to get dirty again by the time we went to church. So, we do our cleanin' up for church Sunday morning. And getting 8 showers done in time for 12:00 church is just about right. 10:30 church is where we need to be pretty focused to get it done on time. Sigh :)

As we were taking the sacrament this week, a thought entered my head which I presume was the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. I realized that the little kids probably didn't understand the sacrament prayer very well, and it might be more meaningful if we translated it together. So for our Primary lesson, we got the videos of the sacrament prayers and went through it one sign at a time, one phrase at a time. The kids and I signed along with the video, over and over again until we knew it all.

Some of the signs were tough even in English. None of the younger kids knew what "benefit" means. (This is the sign used in "bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all who partake of it".) They totally struggled with the opening, "O God, the Eternal Father." What does "O" mean? Yeah, it's not a word we use a lot in every day language any more. 

After we were done with all the practice, which frankly was longer and more tedious than I would normally ask from a Primary lesson, I congratulated the kids on their hard work and told them how great it would be to be able to understand what they are saying next week. Martha laughed and said, "Or, I can just read the captions, like I do every week..."

Touche, little girl.