"What's your sign?"
Don't you just love the random little questions asked by curious and uninhibited minds? They don't hold back and some can be quite odd, and you wonder what is going through their little minds as they land on the need to know that particular tidbit.
"Do Rhinoceroses have toenails?"
"Has anyone ever been on Jupiter?"
"Why did Lady Gaga's mother name her Lady?"
My girls are currently enthralled with the "Signing Time" Videos. We check them out from the library, renew them until the end of time, and almost always end up paying late fees too. We finally drop them back off, and head immediately to the DVD section to see what has landed on the shelf. Old favorites, or new volumes to devour? I know the "Signing Time with Alex and Leah" theme song by heart, and I feel as though I know the child actors who star in the shows, and I marvel at "how much they've grown."
It's not unusual now for the girls to use sign for their requests, and often they have learned signs that I have never even seen. Even Bethanie is getting into it, and when we played a board game, it was common for her to use the signs for "My turn" and "Your turn" while we played. It's pretty cool to see that the girls have found a language they love to learn, and that we can all use as a family.
Except that yesterday, the girls wanted to know the sign for vagina. This subject is not covered in the DVD series. Evidently the host, Rachel, doesn't feel that stars Alex and Leah (cousins) need to discuss anything below the neck, and I understand that. But now I have a houseful of little girls who apparently would all like to discuss their private parts via Sign. So Mom and Dad can't overhear the conversation, I imagine. Even Bethanie, pretending to be horrified, was interested in finding out if I knew the answer to this question. For the record, I didn't.
Also, in a moment of spectacularly unenlightened and unprepared parenting, I think I said something like: "Oh, I don't think there is a sign for that. It's a private area, so there's no need to discuss it." I am normally nonchalant about things like body part names..and we are a potty-humor type of family...so this would typically not be an issue. But I admit they took me by surprise, and as I could still remember my friends teaching me the signs for "Shit" and "Sex" back in high school, I suddenly had an image of my adorable little daughters running around doing inappropriate signs, and I cracked. Couldn't do it. So therefore, "Vagina" has no sign. At least not right now.
But, I DO know the sign for Rhinoceros now, and could stumble my way through telling you via Sign, that I have no idea if Rhinoceroses have toenails or not.
PS. www.signingtime.com. Pretty great videos. We want the whole set (hint hint for the holidays and birthdays coming up!)
