Most Elephants Speak English

I think I may have a little language imperialist on my hands!

While Malcolm is happy to watch cartoons in Russian, he refuses to acknowledge Russian when it's actually spoken by humans. Especially me. He gets a very incredulous look on his face, slumps his shoulders and says, "Mom, don't say that!"

So I bought him some nice new picture books at a Russian-language book store to try to fun-up Russian. He was so excited and asked me to read him the book. So I did. Well, I started to, at least. He let me get about 3 words in before he would say, "no momma!" This happened several times, until finally he insisted, "this book is for children!"

Hmm. Well. Ok. So I said, "Malcolm, some children speak Russian." To which he replied. "NO! Children don't speak Russian!" But clearly the conversation made an impression on him because later that day he said, "Mom, most elephants speak English." "Really," I said. "What do elephants say?" "Pthhhhhh" (his elephant trumpet sound. I had no idea that was in English!

In M's defense, many kids his age around here don't talk much, so in reality none of the children he's met here speak Russian. They just don't talk at all! And about elephants speaking English.. well, I don't know about that. But in Russian, dogs say "gaf, gaf" and frogs say "kva, kva," so maybe the elephants he knows really do only speak in English.

A new season, a new blog

As we prepare to move to Kazakhstan, we've been trying to explain to Malcolm as best we can the sorts of changes we'll encounter. His two year old brain can certainly get excited about living in an apartment where we have to ride an elevator, or using buses for transportation. The other day, though, we had to break it to him that his drum set would not be coming to Kazakhstan. This was a little tougher to swallow. For him it really called into question whether anything that's a part of his daily life would continue once we move. The next day during his bath, he just had to ask... "soap, Kazakhstan?"

Yes Malcolm, there will be soap in Kazakhstan, I assured him!

For the most part there will be everything we could possibly need to live comfortably. Astana is a modern city that has lots of opportunities and resources, even an indoor water park! Certainly it will be a big adjustment but we are more than ready for a new adventure.