Kids Sign the Darnedest Things

We were having a lovely trip to the fabric store. The moment we walked through the door, my daughter paused, took a deep breath and said, “I love the smell of the fabric store!”

We did our shopping, filled our carts with ribbons in all the colors of the rainbow, and discovered a section of adorable PUL fabrics for making homemade cloth diapers I’m unlikely to ever need again. We tried on feather boas and foam cowboy hats and touched about half of the yarns in the store before it was time to check out.

The cashier and the people behind us were loving my three-year-old. They kept asking him questions about his new baseball cap.

“What’s the ‘D’ for?” they asked.

“It’s for Detroit Tigers,” he answered.

“Oh! Is that your favorite team?” they asked.

“No, it’s Grandpa’s favorite team,” he answered.

My daughter, hoping to turn the attention to herself, put her hands over her brother’s ears. He squirmed away yelling, “No, Sister! I can’t hear!”

“You sure can’t hear when someone puts their hands over your ears because it blocks the soundwaves,” said the woman behind us.

“You need to learn how to do sign language,” suggested the cashier.

“I know this sign,” my son said, making his left hand into a fist with his thumb at the side: the ASL letter “A”.

“We’ve been taking ASL classes,” I explained, and prepared to help my son show off a little bit. “What else can you sign, Honey? You can sign your name, right?” The women around us watched my son, waiting to see what he’d do.

“I can sign this,” he said, and carefully stuck up his middle finger while holding the others down with his thumb.

“Oh, no, Honey, this is how you make a ‘K’,” I covered, demonstrating with my first two fingers and my thumb and avoiding eye contact with the cashier and our fellow fabric store patrons.

“Well, it’s been nice talking with you!” I addressed the now-quiet women as I took my receipt and wheeled our cart to the exit. “Have a lovely day!”