Found in Translation

Usually K is the one to lock himself in the house - in fact he has locked himself in every room of our old house in Richmond, BC, from the washroom to his bedroom and our bedroom which had child safety handles inside that he didn't know how to maneuver.  My favorite (although not at the time) was when he was about a year a half...it was December 2009 and it had snowed all night.  The next morning when I looked out the window, I saw the driveway covered in a blanket of snow and decided it would be a good time to stay home from work and daycare and play in the snow with K.  So I bundled up K in his snowsuit so we could make a snowman in the backyard.  And then I remembered, I left K's mittens in the car.  So I told K to stay put in the hallway while I went to get his mittens from the car.  I closed the door behind me, walked to the car parked on the street, got the mittens and came back to what I thought would be an unlocked door.  But to my surprise, it wasn't.  I tried to explain to K how to unlock the door, but he couldn't and started to cry.  My landlady wasn't home so I couldn't ask her to come downstairs and open the door...hmmm, what to do now? I thought to myself.  And then I remembered that my landlady's daughter who has an extra set of keys and lived a few houses away worked from home.  I told K to wait there and that I was coming back.  I walked over to my landlady's daughter's house, hoping she would be home.  I rang the doorbell and she answered...I told her what happened and she came back with me and the extra set of keys to open the door.  As we walked back home, we could hear K crying from inside.  My heart sank and we walked faster.  We opened the door to find him red in the face from crying so much and standing helpless in his blue puffy snowsuit.  We went inside the house and he motioned for me to go in the house by myself while he stayed in the hall and did his business.  Now I understand the meaning of "I was so scared I shit in my pants."

It seems locking oneself in a room in the house runs in the family and this time it was M's turn.  It is around 7 am the morning after moving into our new home in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.  I am talking to a friend on Skype, M is taking a shower and K is sleeping in the next room.  I hear K's footsteps in the hallway...he walks towards the washroom and then into the living room where I am...he asks me where his dad is and I told him he was in the shower.  A few minutes later, I hear M knocking on the washroom door...I walk over to check and see what's going on only to find out that he has locked the door and can't get out.  I turn to K who ks standing right next to me with his blanket and I smile - this time it's his dad's turn.  We try to open the door, but to no avail.  I suggest that I go upstairs to the 4th floor of the apartment building (we live on the first floor) and let the landlady know and ask for her help.  The only challenge is my Russian is not good enough for me to convey such a message.  So I ask M to dictate what I should say...I write it down and repeat it back to him to make sure I am correct.  I turn to K and ask him to come with me.  He stops me in my tracks and, very slowly, reminds me that first we need to go to the store and buy some soap to wash the clothes (this is something I told him before going to bed the previous evening - he never forgets).  Both M and I can't help but laugh...K obviously doesn't understand the urgency of the situation at hand - to get M out of the locked washroom.  So I assure K that we would go to the store and get the soap but that first we need to go to the landlady to help us get his dad out of the washroom.  I put on his shoes and then mine and again, he stops me in my tracks again and questions why we were going in our pyjamas.  Clearly he doesn't understand the urgency, so I calmly tell him that it's ok for us to go in our pyjamas because we need to get his dad out of the washroom.  As we walk up the 4 flights of stairs, I practice what I am about to say and ask K to help me out since he speaks Russian very well.  He responds by saying, "how am I suppose to know what to say in Russian?" We get to the door and knock on it....no answer.  I ring the doorbell, no answer.  I start to worry and ring the doorbell again.  Our landlady comes to the door and asks who it is...I tell her it's me and she opens the door - we've woken her up.  So I begin to apologize profusely with the Russian word for 'sorry' (I've learned this from the numerous times K has had to apologize to M for misbehaving...glad that I could put it to good use now).  Nervously, I read every word from the paper and then K, who realizes I am stumbling and probably not making any sense, chimes in and says 2 key words in Russian - "open door."  That seemed to do the trick and my landlady calls to her husband and lets me know that he will come down in a few minutes.  While walking down to our apartment, K and I recall how K has locked himself in every door in our house in Richmond and that he also locked himself in our room at my in-laws place when we first came to Tajikistan and that now his dad has locked the door.  I end with "the moral of the story is we don't lock doors anymore."  We laugh for the remainder of the walk downstairs.