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

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.