Challenge (MxM) (COMPLETED)

Chapter Fifty Eight- Baby Steps

Chapter Fifty Eight-

Dax

"Can you please take this seriously? I want to start the process as soon as possible because some places can take years. We're already at a disadvantage because we're gay, you're 8 years older than me, and we aren't married yet."

Noel has been stressing about the adoption process. He was very specific about adopting a baby from overseas and fostering kids here in hopes that we'll have the chance to adopt them as well. He's been complaining about everything and trying to do all these ridiculous things like learning languages so that if we adopt a kid from one of the places he listed, we'll know how to teach them about their language and culture better.

Honestly, I think it's a great idea, but I don't need to learn as much as he does. Besides, I don't really care where our kid is born or what they look like. I don't care what language they'll speak. I just want to be a dad and I want to raise a baby with Noel.

I know we'll be good parents to whatever kid we get, but this planning part is important to Noel.

"Okay, what's the list again?"

"Ukraine, South Korea, Uganda, and Taiwan." He answers.

"Ukrainian won't be hard for me to learn because I speak two Slavic languages already, Serbian and Russian. I already know how to speak Korean, and it's fairly easy to learn. I speak Mandarin so I'll just have to learn some of the Taiwanese dialect, and the official language of Uganda is English, but if you want to learn Swahili, I'd be more than willing to help you."

I turn the blender back on after adding a little more alcohol to the piña colada. He's mad that I want to drink while we figure this out. Sometimes I like to get under his skin like he does with me.

I ignore his glaring at me, and turn it on high when he tries to shout at me over the loud noise it's making. Noel huffs and walks closer, yanking the cord out of the wall which makes it stop blending. Once the whirring quiets down, he clears his voice.

"You suck." He tells me with a little pout. "I've never learned another language before, and you keep acting like it's so easy, but I spend like two hours a day working on these and I feel like I haven't retained any of it."

"I already told you, you need to focus on just one at a time. It's hard to learn new languages as an adult. My father had me learn languages from a very young age. It was easy for me because once you learn some base languages you'll pick up easier on other languages in the group. For example, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Bulgarian are all Slavic languages with similarities in the structure of words. Once you know one of them, it's easy to learn the others. English is technically a Germanic language, so the best languages to learn as an English speaker are German, Dutch, and eventually Danish and Swedish. The languages you're talking about are some of the hardest ones to learn for someone who only speaks English."

Noel blushes and hands me the cord. "First, it's so hot when you get all nerdy like that. Second, those kids need adopted the most, so can you just help me narrow it down? Which language would be easiest from my list?"

"On paper, Ukrainian should be the easiest to learn. It's still an Indo-European language so there should be some connections to English that you can make. However Korean is a very simplistic language, and it will be the easiest for me to teach you. I'd say one of those is your best bet." I sigh and look at him for a minute. "Are you sure this is okay? Won't people be mad watching two white guys walk around with a Korean kid?"

Noel shakes his head and wraps his arms around me. "I think as long as we do our best to make sure she knows her culture and allow her to explore her heritage as much as she wants, it will be okay. I'm sure any child would rather have white patents than no parents."