Sunday, April 12, 2015

In which the kids learn how to insult each other silently

Ryan is currently teaching a group of Special Ed kids as one of his horticulture classes.  This is the second year he's had this type of class, and he's done a good job.  This is also the second time he's had a deaf student, and Ryan's goal is to learn one word in sign language a day.  He's worked up a pretty good vocabulary.

One day Ryan came home with a couple of new words to share around the dinner table.  "Pig" and "dirty" are very similar signs, both essentially waving your fingers under your chin.  So, "dirty pig" is an easy sign to make, and Ryan showed all the girls how to insult each other.  They started incorporating the sign for "beautiful" as well, so then we had, "beautiful pig," beautiful dirty pig," and just plain, "dirty pig."   They spent the entire evening signing, "dirty pig" to each other, and of course, after a while, the kids started to feel insulted rather than thinking it was funny.

Today at church, Maddie was either feeling ornery or she was trying to be funny.  She looked up at her dad sitting on the stand during the sacrament (you know, the time you should be the most reverent out of all 3 hours at church), and started signing "Father you dirty pig."

Ryan started cracking up.  Quietly, of course.  It wouldn't do for a member of the bishopric to actually guffaw during the sacrament.

Annie figured out what Maddie was doing, and started signing too.

Ryan leaned over to Bro. Weaver and whispered to him what his kids were doing.  Then there were two guys on the stand staring at my not-so-reverent offspring with big smiles.

I got the girls to fold their arms again, and wished the floor could just swallow us all.  It would have been so much easier to have stayed in my bed this morning.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Pretty funny Danae, and this from those who know him best.

I text Ryan during the meeting when it's too hot, I can't hear, can he please catch my mother-in-law, etc. Now I know that if I text him that he's a dirty pig, he can enjoy the full humor of the moment.

Doug Barnes