The Random Russian

I may have mentioned before that on our last trip to pick up Owen I did ask our translator to ask if he spoke any words. The question was never answered. Maybe she figured it didn't matter since we wouldn't understand it anyway. Or maybe she forgot to ask his caretakers. Or maybe the caretakers didn't really know. Just one of the things I didn't have the energy to press harder about. The only thing we saw him do was shake his head NO (vigorously).

Then I think I mentioned that after being home for a number of months, the word "Da" (Russian for yes) started popping up quite often and before he actually said "yes". It surprised me a little. I wondered if he used to say it in Russia, and he just now understood English enough to use it in the right context, or if he knew it but never said it before. I suspect it is the former.

Well, a few more Russian words have popped up lately, out of the blue. Owen loves cars, and so "car" was one of his first English words. He uses it a lot. But the other day he said "ma-shee-na" which is Russian for car. It was as plain as day. And one of the few words in Russian that I would recognize. I tried to get him to say it again, and he just looked at me funny and then ignored me, like he had made a mistake. A few days after that, while saying Bye, he said "pa-ka" which is Russian for bye. Of course I jumped around saying Pa-ka Pa-ka like an idiot, and he just gave me a devilish smile and said "Bye" and would not say it again.

It feels like he's a secret agent trying to cover his knowledge of his mother country language. And that is what we joked about, when we went into the Apple store at the mall the other day and he sat in front of one of the laptops they set up for kids to play games on and proceeded to dabble his fingers across the keyboard very quickly just like he was furiously typing, and Jim and I are off to the side commenting "and now that I've hacked into the Pentagon's mainframe, I'll just download some key data..."

But on a more serious note, it does make me wonder. Does he feel like he is two people, and he has to hide his Russian-ness now that he is here. Or does it not go that deep, and it's just the random language slips of someone who went from hearing one language to speaking a different one. I do suspect that at some point in his life, most likely when the hormones of puberty are raging, that he will feel unresolved about his dual-ness. I hope that he will talk about it. I would love for him to keep his Russian, and learn more, but I'm afraid there is so little chance for any sort of fluency without exposure to someone who really speaks it (and if I learned more, I'm sure I'd only be passing on a really poor version of Russian). Maybe someday he will decide to learn it and somewhere in the recesses of his brain it will come easily because he has heard it before. And I do hope that he will be able to embrace his ability to be whatever he chooses - American, Russian, or Canadian, and hopefully remain all three. And I wonder...if he ever curses me and I don't really know it?? Maybe some things are better off unknown.