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Dasha was three before she said anything, which just so happened to be an entire full sentence.
It was over breakfast and Shane was out of the house, doing some of the behind the scenes 'boring stuff' (Ilya's words) for the Irina Foundation. Cliff was in town and was spending time staying with them while there.
Katya, her sister and Shane and Ilya's first daughter, was off at band camp and would be picked up by Shane on his way home (it was a day camp, lasting three weeks before school started).
Cliff choked on his coffee, stopping mid-story about how their new Captain 'totally sucks, bro, like he can't lead the team for sh...crap...everyone's about ready to like...pull a mutiny on the bounty or whatever'. Ilya didn't have the heart, or the brain capacity at that time of the morning, to tell him it was just mutiny.
"Can I have more eggs please?" Dasha asked, her words clear and precise with an adorable mix of a Russian accent and just a hint of a French-Canadian accent since Ilya and Shane used English, French and Russian at home, wanting both their kids to grow up trilingual (even though Ilya was still very not good at French and Shane's Russian had the ability to make Sveta blue screen (Harris taught him that word)).
Cliff did a full spit take across the kitchen, which Ilya was going to never let him hear the end of once his brain was back online and he could think more clearly.
As it was, he had to completely reboot, staring down at his beautiful little princess in her Daydream Bear pajamas with her reddish brown hair (sadly just like Ilya's wild curls) sticking out all over the place, before he went into dad mode and shoved all of it down and smiled at her, running a hand over her ringlets gently.
"Scrambled, Dasha?" He asked.
Dasha nodded, squirming in her seat in the way only a three year old could probably manage, which reminded Ilya of when Shane was listening to Yuna go on for too long about business things before she realized what she was doing and stopped (for the moment) and let David take over.
"Yeshcho moloka, pozhaluysta." She requested. "Kogda abeoji vernotsya domoy?" (Can I have more milk, too and when is dad coming home?)
So now she was throwing Russian at him with the Korean term for 'dad', which is what the kids (well, Katya) called Shane (Ilya was batya).
Ilya was not awake enough for that.
"What is that?" Cliff asked, managing to speak again.
"Russian with a Korean word." Ilya said as he got up and started manically trying to scramble an egg, something he'd done countless times before without any problem, but felt like he was doing for the very first time in a robot body or something.
"So now she's...multilingual?" Cliff asked, as Dasha sat there humming quietly to herself, some song Ilya recognized as something David hummed to the girls when he held them to calm them down growing up.
"We've always been a trilingual home." Ilya said, working on autopilot, trying to remember where he put his phone so he could text Shane.
"I'm so screwed." Cliff muttered. "I'm barely one lingual or whatever."
Ilya grinned, in spite of himself.
This is why Cliff was his best friend (male best friend, Sveta would eviscerate him and Cliff if she heard him refer to Cliff as his best friend).
Ilya gave Dasha her egg and some more milk (soy milk because they found out the hard way she had a dairy allergy; Katya was allergic to shellfish, which they found out because she had a bit of Shane's leftover rice one time that had shrimp in it...both times were a long few hours in the emergency room and in Ilya's top 10 of shitty fucking days) before he located his phone, finally.
'Dasha is trilingual.' He sent Shane, which, really, wasn't the best thing.
He needed at least two more cups of coffee.
'Yes, Ilya, we raised the kids that way even though we're just bilingual.' Shane, predictably, replied.
Ilya rolled his eyes and let Cliff try to interact with Dasha, who seemed content and quiet again for the moment, only nodding respectfully at him every few beats as she ate her eggs and sipped at her milk.
'No, malysh (baby), she literally asked me for more eggs in Russian and asked when you were coming home and used the Korean term for father...I think. You know my Korean is terrible.' Ilya was glad he and Shane had gotten so damn good at texting over the years as his fingers flew over the keys and he knew it wouldn't take long for Shane to give a reply.
'Oh my God.'
Ilya rolled his eyes and started to send a snarky response before Shane sent another reply.
'I'm stuck in these goddamn meetings and then I have to get Katya from camp, and mom asked if we want to come over for dinner, Cliff's invited of course.' Shane finally responded.
Ilya looked up at Cliff with the same look he always got in locker rooms when games weren't going their way and Cliff instinctively winced and squirmed in his seat, glancing around the room to find the exit incase Ilya's irritation turned toward him.
"Moy muzh menya razdrazhayet." He blurted out. (My husband is irritating.)
"Menya zovut Kliff Marlo. YA igrayu za «Boston Berz» na pozitsii napadayushchego — levogo kraynego, a takzhe ispolnyayu obyazannosti kapitana, kogda Rozi otsutstvuyet." Cliff shot back at him and Ilya stared at him, baffled, but then he realized the one sentence that he'd taught Cliff to say in Russian over the years and he blurted out a baffled laugh. (My name is Cliff Marleau. I play for the Boston Bears as a left wing and serve as captain when Roz isn't there.)
'Tell her yes. Shane. Our daughter. For the first time ever. At three years old. Asked me to make her more eggs and for some more milk.' Ilya typed out, fighting the urge to throw his phone.
'I know, Ilya, trust me, I'm freaking out, too. I don't know what to say. Dad says I was a quiet kid except when I had something to say and then I was very good at getting my point across. Also, I know this is not helpful to you. I'm just...I guess she just decided she wants to get her point across now.' Shane replied.
Ilya looked up at Cliff. "She's just now ready to get her point across."
Cliff held his hand out for a fist bump. "Well, now she can get it across in three different languages."
This is why Cliff was his fucking best (male) friend.
Ilya laughed as he indulged him.
"Shane now is really going to have to learn Russian, and I am really going to have to learn French." Ilya commented.
"And your in-laws are going to have to learn Russian." Cliff pointed out. "...I'm gonna have to learn both...man, English breaks my brain sometimes, how am I going to learn two more languages? That one little thing you taught me to say took you six months!"
Ilya ignored him and pulled up a text to David.
'Dasha is speaking trilingually now, you're going to have to learn Russian.' He sent.
David responded pretty quickly. 'YA skachal Duolingo uzhe dovol'no davno, no eta malen'kaya sova menya razdrazhayet. Vprochem, ya starayus' izo vsekh sil. Eto lish' dayot mne yeshcho odin povod sovershenstvovat'sya.' (I downloaded Duolingo quite a while ago, but that little owl irritates me. Anyway, I'm trying my best. It's just another reason for me to improve.)
Ilya looked up at Cliff. "An owl is teaching my father-in-law Russian."
Cliff nodded seriously. "Probably the best way to learn." He said.
Ilya needed more fucking coffee.