A Little Time and a Keyboard: Guillotine Cake and Bloody Mary {My Daughter's Royal Obsession}

Guillotine Cake and Bloody Mary {My Daughter's Royal Obsession}

Monday, March 4, 2013

Image via Marie Antoinette "Madame Deficit"
When Borders was going out of business, I purchased a book about the history of the British monarchy for my daughter. She was six at the time, so the book was not meant for her to read right away. Rather, I thought that I could tuck it away for the future and it was a great deal--I could not resist. Since my daughter was entirely intrigued by the book by the time we arrived home, we ended up reading a little together anyway.

Ever since then, my daughter has had quite the fascination with all things royal. Her ultimate royal obsession happens to be Queen Elizabeth I. While learning about Elizabeth, she also learned about Queen Mary. While I did tread lightly on some of the things that ummm......happened during this period of royal history, my daughter does know about Bloody Mary (in a very bare minimum manner). The good thing about this--she was not afraid when classmates inevitably brought up Bloody Mary at school. (One point for mommy!)



My daughter has since moved on to Marie Antoinette. Since my daughter is learning French, it seemed a natural progression that she would want to move on from the British monarchy to the French monarchy. Initially, I was a little apprehensive about allowing her to read about Marie Antoinette, given the details of her demise. However, we did find a couple of age appropriate books. Since, my daughter already knew about Henry VIII and his wives, I let her have a go at it. While she did have some questions, Marie Antoinette's end did not phase her. In fact, my daughter is totally comfortable with the story of Marie Antoinette. She has been known to read books about Marie Antoinette during church services. (I am not being judged at all!) She has also asked if the guillotine is at Versailles. Inspired by her most recent Marie Antoinette read, she has asked to have a cake with a guillotine topper for her birthday. (There is a picture of a lovely one in one of her books.)

Recently, she has been asking about reading about other powerful women. Cleopatra--ok....Bloody Mary--ok, you already know about her...Catherine De' Medici--wait a minute....Agripinna--where are you getting these names from? I grabbed her current Marie Antoinette read. It is from a series called "Dastardly Dames." Hmmmmm..mom...maybe you should have checked that one a little more closely before letting Mini Mel check it out of the library. Not sure that you want your almost 8-year-old reading about all of these infamous women.

Overall, my daughter's obsession with royalty has been quite entertaining. She is currently quite interested in seeing if Queen Elizabeth II will reign longer than Queen Victoria. Yet, she does insist that Queen Elizabeth II cannot be her favorite queen because she looks like a man. (Gasp!) However, after looking at her list of women to read about, we may just scale this back a wee bit. Fortunately, she recently has started reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Much safer. Or, maybe not---she did read about the slaughtering of a pig in the beginning of the first book.............(What is a mother to do?)

Will she get the guillotine cake for her birthday? Probably not. And, a Bloody Mary is out of the question.

6 comments

  1. Ha! I love this! It's amazing how into the history she is! All my kids are interested in is video games and burping contests. :)
    Katie~
    http://dysfunctionsjunction.com

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    1. Katie, I am surprised by how much she is into it. The only danger is that she is pretty good at putting things together, so she asks a lot of questions about things I don't think she is necessarily ready to learn about yet.

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  2. That is wonderful! My older son is interested in history too because my husband is a history buff. I couldn't believe it when he told me he set the DVR to record a show on Lincoln. Always nice when a bit of good influence sticks, isn't it? :)

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    1. Yes, Linda--it is awesome! I always impressed when kids actually choose to watch something that is not mindless. It means that we are getting through to them.

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  3. Visiting from the Made In A Day blog hop. Now following via GFC.

    Would love a visit back, thanks!

    http://www.happykidsincblog.com

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  4. I love history. My parents took us to living history museumes on vacations on the way to our final destination. Sneaky parents making me learn on summer vacation!

    Anyway, they didn't sanitze much from me, like when we went to a Civil War battle field and museum. They didn't get into the gruesome details of war but they didn't shelter me from seeing a thick lead bullet bit almost in half from soliders biting on it becaues they didn't have anaesthesia while the doctors removed limbs either. It didn't give me nightmares or turn me into a serial killer. If anything I was better about getting shots at the doctor :)

    The thing it did do is give me a love of history uncensored. My childhood heros were historical rather than pop culture figures. I grew up to be a historical reenactor and that's how I met my husband. It also made me appreciate more of modern life like not having to slaughter my own pig like in Little House!

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