That's it!

My son is reaching that stage of development that docs call "the terrible twos", a period of testing the boundaries and mama's patience, the period of defiance and opposites. How do I know?

Imagine Sasha standing by the bookshelf, removing the books, one by one, and throwing them on the floor into a porridge of toys, water bottles, hand towels, etc. I am standing in the kitchen and raising my voice: "Саша! Нельзя! Нельзя, я сказала!" (Sasha! You may not! You may not, I said!), to which he replies: "Зя!" (Yes, I may!). And so we continue yelling back and forth: "Нельзя!" - "Зя!" - "Нельзя!" - "Зя!"

For those readers who grew up in the same cultural realm as I did, the humor is obvious, but for those American readers of mine, here is the video from the '80s that sums it all up:

These wonderful actors were part of the comedy group Лицедеи (Lizedeyi). This skit is absolutely applicable to all parent-child situations where the child rebels. Exactly my conversation with Sasha this morning.

Needless to say, there is no word зя in Russian language. Нельзя is a remnant of the old system, probably Old-Slavonic. The opposite of нельзя is можно (may). It's impossible to say не можно. One may either say нельзя or можно. But Sasha does not know the word можно (because he never asks me if he may do something, he just does it, and then I say that he may not). Instead, he figured out that не stands for not, and he creatively subtracted it from нельзя, while adding a new unit to his vocabulary - зя.

The very puzzling caterpillar

As I wrote before, I often read English books in Russian for Sasha. It is very interesting to see his reaction to certain books. There are sometimes pages that puzzle him, and he keeps returning to those again and again. For example in Tubby Time by Leslie Patricelli, Sasha always pauses on the page where the baby got soap in her eyes. He keeps pointing at it and asking something in his own language, and my only guess is that he thinks that the baby is crying and he wants to know why. And I cannot find the right way to explain to him that the baby got soap in her eyes.

And so is the case for The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Sasha keeps turning to the page where the caterpillar is extra fat, right before it turns into a cocoon.

I keep going through the book and explaining that the caterpillar ate through everything and turned into a cocoon to eventually become a butterfly, but Sasha seems confused... Until one day he just pats on the brown cocoon and says: "Kaka, kaka i pakaka", which sounds exactly like my expression: "Какал, какал и покакал!" (Pooped, pooped, and pooped it all out!).

It may be funny to you, but this is the most logical explanation to the child who is often constipated after his parents feed him all kinds of stuff. It definitely makes more sense than some cocoon. And hey, at least, Sasha does not think that the caterpillar is a "wasteful capitalist"!

Hi stands for Hawaii

It was only expected that the trip to Grannie and Gramps would help Sasha acquire more English words. While still in the air, Sasha had already somehow picked up the word "Hi!", and he was using that consistently for 15 minutes on the lady in the seat behind us. Once we arrived to Hawaii, that Hi! grew stronger and stronger each day. Coming down the stairs for breakfast, he would start saying Hi! before we turn around the corner into the living room.

Among other things that Sasha has mastered in Hawaii (such as pulling himself up to standing in the crib or showing with his finger how the blades of a fan rotate) was also the ability to throw objects on the floor and say: "Uh-oh!", as well as communicating with fingers and expression "Gak!" to get whatever he desired at that very moment. He also was heard to say: "Ducks!", when the viewing of such was suggested.

Interestingly enough, his American Gramps is known to Sasha under Russian word дедушка (he doesn't say it, but he turns to Gramps when he hears it). Why - nobody knows. There were plenty of opportunities for Sasha to learn the English word, but it just didn't happen, so far.

Another oddity: Upon arrival back to Denver, Sasha doesn't say Hi! as enthusiastically and as often as he did in Hawaii, but he did start waiving Goodbye!, except that he squeezes his hand instead of waiving.

As I have previously read in "Raising a bilingual child" by Barbara Zurer-Pearson, the progress in one language can potentially drive the progress in the second language. And I think, it is really the case for Sasha: his comprehension of Russian has improved drastically since the trip to Hawaii. He understands more words and more sentence types. I can ask him a question, and he responds with yes or no. Here is a a couple of our typical conversations, as translated from Russian:

- Do you want more?
- No-no!
- Do you want water?
- No-no!
- Do you want to nurse?
- Yes-yes-yes!

- Do you want to go for a walk?
- No-no!
- Do you want to play with your trucks?
- No-no!
- Do you want to read some books?
- Yes-yes-yes!
(after reading books for 30 minutes and playing with trucks for 15 minutes)
- Do you want to go for a walk?
- Yes-yes-yes!

So, the next step would be to introduce him to questions that require the answer other than yes or no. Something like multiple choice questions. So far, I was unsuccessful communicating with him that way. I think he focuses more on the end of the sentence and says yes or no to whatever is the last choice. That's something to work on.