Bring Your Favorite Book to School

K went back to school today after almost a week off sick. After the absolute disaster that was the entire month of December, you may imagine the kind of fear a single cough inspires in the Slovak and me now. (It always starts with a single cough.)

M did come down with K's cold but by some miracle did not immediately progress to severe bronchitis, even though his cough is pretty ugly. So all in all it could be worse.

The little ones were surprisingly sweet during their enforced week at home, though as always M can never sleep when his sister is around. So he's been napless and cutting a new molar is hardly helping.

Well, to be honest there was one day when they acted so much like wild animals I thought they might eat each other, but otherwise they were sweet.

January was book month at school, so today K brought her favorite book to school to share. Picking a "favorite" book to share with her classmates was kind of a loaded question, since we had to balance books she is actually excited about with books the other children will understand (most of our favorites are in English).

She really wanted to take either Harry Potter or Little House - definitely a chapter book, she said - but when I suggested one of her Czech books, she went with O perníkové chaloupce (Hansel and Gretel). She actually loves that book so much she tries to memorize the exact wording and sometimes repeats each sentence after me as I read.

It would have been fun for her to share some of the chapter books she is reading, but I'm not sure how accessible Laura Ingalls or Harry Potter (in English) would be for the other children, and K certainly wouldn't have the vocabulary to explain it in Czech, since we read them in English.

Because as it turns out, "Gryffindor" isn't "Gryffindor" in Czech :) (I've read the first few books in Czech, but K hasn't.)

Anyway...all of that is to say...YAAAAAY back in school. A week off in summer when we can go places would be more fun, I have to say.

And I don't think it was a coincidence that K went back to school today and M took a three hour nap.