Last Trip to Disneyland before the Summer Blockout

Gracie and I went to Disneyland, just the two of us! She's becoming more and more grown up lately, and I love spending some one-on-one time with her. We didn't take a stroller!

She wanted to wear her Merida dress and I was instructed to wear my Merida Tshirt, which I did. But, she changed her mind and wore "normal clothes". We both made poor shoe choices and paid dearly the next day, but it was so much fun to have a Mom & Gracie day! 

We reminisced about our first trip to Disneyland just before her 3rd birthday and we did the math to see how many years she's been coming to Disneyland. She's 7 now. That makes 4 years of Disneyland for her! That's a lot!

She gave me her verbal list of things she wants to do together, without little kids holding us back. Gracie wanted to ride Soaring Over California, Ariel, Star Tours and Indiana Jones. She wasn't interested in seeing any characters and she didn't want to do any "baby" rides. Well, we'll see. I had one thing on my list of things to do; I wanted to see the new show "Mickey's Magical Map". There was an AP showing today (annual passholders only show) with limited seating.

We went to California Adventure first and grabbed up a fast-pass for the Souring ride. We saw Goofy's water fountain orchestra show, and then the Army men performance. The Army men appeared right in front of us and they are very entertaining with all of their drumming. Gracie volunteered to be a part of their army training crew; she was soon trained to be a toy Army soldier.

We walked along to go ride the Jumping Jellyfish or the airplane swing thing, but when we got right up to those rides and Gracie looked up at them, she quickly changed her mind. She shook her head when I led her to Goofy's Sky School too.  Heights aren't her thing.

We rode Ariel; it's a favorite! This time we got to see how the handicapped carriage works. All of the people load into clamshells and ride around, the loading takes place on a conveyer belt so that the ride doesn't have to stop. There is one handicap vessel (or maybe there are two, and we only see one at a time) and it's always empty when we have seen it. This time the handicap carriage was right in front of our clamshell and when the ride ended, we got to see the Ariel cast members load a wheelchair on. It was really cool! They made it look effortless and easy, no big deal at all.

Gracie wanted to stop and play in the Redwood Creek wilderness area. We've done this before, but I don't enjoy it when I have more than one child to keep tabs on. The play area is big and has multiple levels, if one kid goes down a slide, I suddenly lost one. And in this play area, they run! I almost always avoid this place unless I convince them that we are doing one thing and then we leave the area right away. Since I only had one kid to wrangle, we stopped in for a good rowdy play.  Gracie rode the tire swing and then she looked at a few of the nature signs. We read about animal footprints and identified a few of them in the concrete path, and we looked at a section of a tree and noted the rings. She wanted to go down the slide, but it was blocked off. We looked over the ledge and saw that it was broken at the bottom. While she was on the tire slide, I saw Russel off in the distance but he was gone by the time her turn on the swing was over so we missed seeing him.

Next we rode Soaring Over California. It's such a nice ride! We've only ridden it once before so we were excited to ride again. You sit on bench seats that rise up and sway while the huge movie screen in front of you shows ariel views of various California locations. There are three rows of bench seating and the first row rises up pretty high, the middle row rises above the 3rd row. We were lucky enough to be seated in the third row so we weren't flying quite as high as those in the first row.

When we came out of the ride, we saw Minnie Mouse and her flygirls perform. We always like the shows at Disneyland, this is a fun one too. The ladies sing Disney flying songs. It is amazing that there are so many!

We also saw the Five and Dime performance. This show must play several performances every day because we always see it when we happen to walk by the area where they perform. It's good though, and Gracie appreciates the live music.

We checked the information booth where the wait times for each ride are posted. 120 minute wait for the Radiator Springs Racers ride. I didn't have to convince Gracie to skip that ride, she wasn't going to stand in line for 2 hours! We then headed out of California Adventure and went to Disneyland.

We went to the Indiana Jones ride and the girl did not want to grab a fast-pass and come back later. She wanted to wait in line. The wait time said 45 minutes, so I said ok. After 30 minutes, we made it about 15 feet of zig zagging waiting in line and we had miles to go (it seems). I made an executive decision and said we were done standing here, we need a fast-pass. I really hoped they were still giving them out by this time! Luckily they were and we got our appointment time of 6:40pm.

Off we went to the Tiki Room, they have a nice hidden bathroom and our feet hurt so we wanted to sit down for a bit. Perfect place to rest tired feet. Plus, the Tiki Room is awesome! On cue, Gracie clung to me just before the lightning strike and pretended she was frightened. I love that.

We grabbed some delicious burritos at Rancho Del Zocalo Restaurante. It's our favorite place to eat in Disneyland.  We left stuffed. I noticed that the prices were raised, no surprise since ticket prices were raised the other day, but the food is great and centrally located so it is convenient. After our horrible hamburger experience at the Villiage Haus Restaurant on a previous trip, I am willing to pay and extra $2 for a meal that I know will be good.

It was time to go to the Fantasyland Theater and line up for the show. I wanted to get there a little early since everything I saw said "limited seating" and this was a special showing. We arrived shortly after 5:00 for the 5:40 show and saw that the line was forming already. We went to what we thought was the end of the line. No, that was the end of that section of the line, they had a cast member controlling a gap in the line for traffic. The line went from the Fantasyland Theater into Toon Town. Into Toon Town? Seriously? My heart sank because I just knew that was too many people to be seated in the theater. We walked and walked looking for the end of the line and we finally found it in front of Goofy's House. I asked the cast member at the end of the line if we even had a chance of being seated. She said, "Oh, sure!"  She seemed confident, but I doubted her anyway.  I let Gracie go play in Goofy's back yard playground while I stood in line on the other side of the Goofy fence. This was crazy.

The line started moving and true to her word, Gracie listened for me to yell for her and she came a running. By this time, the line was piled up behind me farther than I could see. Whoa.

We actually got in! The theater had been expanded and there was a lot more seating than there was before. They used up the space that used to be the Princess line-up area. That space is now bleacher seats. Also, they expanded into the gift shop area and the restaurant seating was turned into bleacher space. It looks as if bleacher seats were installed into the open space in front too, where it was close to the stage. The theater now seats 1800 people and with all those people in line, there was still empty space. It also looks as if they'll be performing this show several times a day, every day. That's 1800 people they take out of the park and occupy in a seated area. Nice. That'll help with crowd control, wait times in lines, etc. We only had to wait a short time in the seats before the show began. While we waited, I pulled out our gigantic autograph book and let Gracie read it while we sat. A little girl next to us was peering over her shoulder, so Gracie began reading out loud to her. It was fun to see her sharing her awesome reading skills.

Mickey's Magical Map show was fantastic! I loved it! It is a singing and dancing show that is very well done. Characters appear and perform. We loved every one of them. The show was just great. Can't wait to see it again! After the show, one of the producers came on stage to talk about how the show was created. I was  hoping that there would be a meet and greet with the performing characters and we could get Pocahontas to autograph our book, but that didn't happen. Gracie didn't want to sit through the lecture, but it was interesting. We ducked out and headed to the Indiana Jones ride. We decided to ride the train to New Orleans Square and save ourselves from walking and lugging our backpack the whole way, plus, the train is fun!

We hopped on board and for the first time that I can remember, I thought they sure need a cleaning crew to stop by. The park, rides, restaurants, rest rooms, everywhere is always very clean. But we saw lots of trash on the floor of the traincar, spilled ice cream glopped around and it just looked like it hadn't been wiped down in a while. I do not understand why people can't hold onto their empty soft drink and water bottles for a bit, there are trash cans everywhere. But spilled ice cream I can understand. This was  a bit much though, and highly unusual. Sure made me realize how clean the park is that one dirty place stuck out like that. The train is in constant motion too, so I don't know how and when they clean the traincars, but I've never noticed them to be dirty before. Food for thought.

When the train stopped at Main Street, the parade was just starting and we could see and hear it from our bench on the train. We decided to hop off and watch the parade. Gracie just loves Disneyland parades!  This was the Soundsational Parade. Such a good one! We had a great view from the Train Station, so we just stayed up there on the platform and watched from above. It was really fun to see it from up here! Of course, Ariel and Cinderella made eye contact with her and waved to her! After the parade, we hopped back on the train.

We got off at New Orleans Square and made our way to the Indiana Jones ride. We got right in with our fast-passes! The line to get in still said 45 minutes and it was a lot shorter than it was earlier in the day. We were able to bypass everyone and walk right in. Gracie feigned bravery and courage, I truthfully admitted fright and nervousness. We rode that crazy ride and screamed the whole way. When it was over, she was delighted! I am just glad we survived.

Our day was done. We only had one more thing we wanted to do together and we skipped it earlier: Enjoy a Dole Whip!  We stopped into the Tiki Room waiting area and we each got a Dole Whip Float. Such a treat! They were so super delicious and sweet! Gracie couldn't find the bottom of her cup and I couldn't either, so we will have to try those again when we aren't so stuffed full of burritos. They are rich and delicious. It was the first time for both of us having the float; maybe next time we can finish them off.

The parking lot tram was our next ride. We didn't get to ride Star Tours, but we had a great day together.

Whale Watching - Best School Field Trip Ever

When I was a kid in a little town in Montana going to public school, we didn't go on any field trips. Or, if we did, I don't remember them. My sister's class all went on a field trip once, they walked across the street to our house to see a live turkey in our backyard. His name was Fuzzy and we ate him for Thanksgiving dinner. She should blog about that someday. Anyway, that's the only time I can recall anyone ever going on a school field trip.

My older two daughters went to elementary school in South Dakota. They went on one field trip. Every year the fourth graders went to an event called "Ag Day" and they went somewhere that the 4-H kids had set up convention style with booths. Booths of livestock and farm information.

Gracie's school has totally blown me away. They have a field trip every month and this month: Whale Watching Cruise. Oh yeah!  Montana and South Dakota have got nothing on California! This school rocks!!!

For a two hour whale watching cruise, the cost per person was $11. The museums cost more than that!

We got up early and left early because the cruise was out of Newport Beach which is a little over an hour away in perfect conditions. But on a weekday morning, we had to battle the commuter traffic on one of the busiest freeways in the state. This means we were traveling at top speeds of 20 and sitting parked on the freeway when it would come to an unexplainable halt. So boring!  We squeezed Gracie, Libby and Charlie in the back seat and with them squished together the ride seemed even longer. It took us two hours to get there, but we made it on time.

We checked in and waited for 45 minutes to board the boat. The kids have now been bored to death for 3 hours.

The people who paid regular price for their tickets were boarded first, and they were sent to the upper deck. The school group was loaded onto the main deck.  The boat looked smaller than it was. A long line of people boarded and there was still room for us. Everyone was choosing just the right spot to sit, little did we realize that everyone would shuffle around and trade places over and over again.

My first thought while on the lower deck was that if anyone on the upper deck were to lean over the railing in the midst of sea-sickness, the puke will land on the people below. That'd be me.

Newport Beach Harbor is beautiful! The weather was awesome too. Even the kids enjoyed the harbor and seeing the boats and homes along the shore with the Los Angeles skyline on the horizon. Very pretty!

So far the ride was nice and smooth, but the kids were hanging onto the railing for dear life. Libby already didn't like the motion of the boat on the water and we were going slow on the easy stretch. Might be a long cruise for the kid.

As soon as we were in the ocean water, we saw sea lions on a buoy. All of the kids on the boat were super excited!

And.... now the kids are bored. And cold. And feeling queasy.

We went into the cabin and sat in a booth. Now they wanted candy and crap from the snack counter. I brought snacks, but they want overpriced sugar from the boat guy. No. 

This is going to be a very long two hour cruise.

After a while we came upon a pod of dolphins. We saw several pods of dolphins, one group after another. It was great! The kids loved seeing the dolphins swim alongside the boat. They jumped and squealed and waved their flippers and tails. I'm sure they were very happy to see the boat full of school kids!

Everyone wanted to see a whale, but the dolphins were very fun to watch. We never did see any whales.

Actually, I was glad that we didn't see any whales. The thought of whales made me nervous. What if they bump the boat and tip us over? I know, these whale watching cruises run multiple times a day and they didn't mention that whales tend to tip over the boat and eat the passengers, but that thought was prominent on my mind.

The teacher asked me if I heard the safety announcements at the top of the cruise, and it occurred to me that I hadn't.  But I did a quick scan earlier to look for marked storage places where floatation devices were. Someone else said they heard the safety schpeel, so I must not have been paying attention when it was announced. Not that it mattered, the idea of whales still made me nervous.

More dolphins! Yay!

Libby didn't care about any of the dolphin watching. She was queasy and cold and miserable. She really didn't like the motion of the boat.

Charlie was feeling confined. The boat wasn't big and he wasn't allowed to run amuck. He's two! He must run around! Poor kid. Gracie wanted to run with her friends and swing on the railings and jump over people and squeeze through others. One hour to go.

More dolphins! Look kids! Dolphins!  They didn't care any more.

At this point, the whales could come and put us out of our misery. Yes, that's how much the kids were enjoying the cruise. 

At least Gracie was having fun with her school friends. I was so glad she was having a good time and hanging with her friends! She had been doing a lot of recent complaining about fitting in socially and idolizing some other kids in her class, all of that finding her place in the social construct of the playground sort of thing. This was great to see her interact with her peers and I found out first hand that she exaggerates her social woes. She's just fine and her friends treat her well and she has nothing to complain about. I was actually worrying about her. This cruise was good for that anyway.

Libby and Charlie fell asleep. Yes!!! They won't give me that "Can you make this super disappointing boat ride end already" look anymore.

When we were returning to the harbor, we saw a huge swarm of seagulls attacking the water. The Captain said they were eating anchovies. It was kind of creepy and weird.

Just like that, the whale watching cruise was done! Yay! It was great! Ok, I am just trying to convince myself that it was great. It was boring and the kids were too confined for their enjoyment. The school kids loved it, but they are old enough to get a bigger thrill out of it than the two littler kids. Gracie had a great time. I was so happy to get off of that boat with the kids!

We searched for a playground near the dock or anywhere near, actually. These kids were as well behaved as they could have been and they had 5 hours of pent up energy, and were recharged by short naps. A two hour drive home would not be easy if they don't play.

There are no playgrounds at Newport Beach.

None.

Luckily, it only took an hour and a half to get home and that included a stop for fast food lunch.

Now if you ask the kids, they will say how much fun they had when we went on a big boat in the ocean. They saw dolphins and birds and can't wait to go again!  I love that their memory of the day is so much happier than the actual cruise was. That makes it worth the hassle.

None of them puked. And nobody on the top deck puked on the people on the lower deck (specifically, me). Nobody fell overboard. Whales did not tip us over. 

With that, I declare the whale watching trip a total success! Let's do it again!

Mystery History

October's school project was called "Mystery History". The assignment was to research a historical figure, report and present to the class information learned. The grand finale of this project was a big event at school where each student dresses like the historical figure they chose, and the other students try to guess who it is.

When I read the assignment description to my first grader she didn't get very excited about it until the word "costume" came into play. Apparently, that's the only thing she heard. The kid has selective hearing just like her father.

Once again, choose a person from history and find out all about that person.  "History? Does that mean a long time ago?"  "Yes."  Cue the flailing of the arms, stomping feet and the extra loud whining. "I don't wanna dress up like an old person! I wanna be a princess!" I decided to just let her get it out of her system and I didn't press it further.

She settled down and said, "Mom? Were there any princesses in history?"  "Yes."  She bolted up from her super slouchy position to sitting on the edge of her seat with wide eyes. "Really?" "Yes!" "Was Cinderella a real princess from history?" "No." "Were any Disney princesses real?" "Yes: Pocahontas and Mulan. But there were a lot of real princesses." "Any real princesses in history named Gracie?" "Yes."

Exuberant jumping up and down and happy squeals.  I think we found our historical figure!  "Mom! Let's google her right now!"

I helped guide her through picking out important facts about Grace Kelly that she could use for her presentation. She just needed some talking points, not an essay, but she needed to know about her life and so we read all about her. It was kind of fun.

Gracie made her list of "clues" and I made her costume. Ready!

Gracie chose the dress that I would replicate for her; to my delight she chose the black and white gown from "Rear Window". It's so pretty!  Since my Gracie is a child, I made a few alterations to the design of the neckline. I didn't think she needed a swooping Vneck exposing a lot of bare back, nor did she need to have her dress barely hanging off of her shoulders. Don't get me wrong, I love the dress and it's lovely lines! But, the costume needs to stay on an active six-year old for an entire day.

To finish the costume, we purchased long white gloves from the Halloween aisle at Target, and topped her head with her sister's tiara that she bought at Claires  years ago for prom. Perfect! In the movie, Grace Kelly did not wear a tiara with that dress, but it added to the princess aspect of the character. In total, the entire costume cost around $10.

I omitted the detail work on the hips of the movie star's dress. I desperately wanted to add it, but I ran out of time. The dress looked great without it, and so I just let it go at that. Not a perfect copy, but close enough.

The event at school was great! Organized costumed chaos at its best. There are four classes of approximately 30 kids each. The teachers had all of the kids stand in a large circle and one class plus all of the parents were to mingle around as if they were at a wax museum. The museum subjects stood still (supposedly) and gave the museum guests clues as to who they were. The museum guests then tried to guess who the mystery history figure was. And, on to the next. Every now and then, the teachers would switch the mingling class for a standing class.  But, with all of the mingling, the kids standing still found this a great opportunity to talk amongst themselves as did the parents. Wandering through the crowd, the conversations were all about the kids history characters, so even though it seemed like chaos, the purpose of the event was right on. There were a lot of great historical figures in the room, very cool! In fact, it reminded me of the movie, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" when they gathered so many people from  history together.

The teachers: Cleopatra, Albert Einstein, Maria Montessori and Mona Lisa

Historical characters acting as wax figures waiting to give clues to the museum guests.

Educational Chaos

Princess Grace with Princess Diana

Betsy Ross, Princess Grace, and Amelia Earhart

Walt Disney, Shirley Temple and others try to guess Princess Grace's name

Hybrid Homeschooling

Gracie goes to this really amazing school. It is a charter school that is run by the school district, so it is a public school, but has that private school feel to it.

The school has two programs, well three actually.  The third being a full time homeschooling program where the student does not participate in a classroom. The other two programs are homeschool/classroom hybrids. The first program they offer is called Classical Minds. The kids in this program attend class on Mondays and Tuesdays and homeschool on Wed, Thurs, and Fridays.  The second program, the one we chose, is Montessori and meets in the classroom on Wed, Thurs, Friday and homeschooling is on Mondays and Tuesdays.

So, Gracie is in the first grade and goes to school three days per week. She has homeschool when she's home. Homeschool work is no different than homework. In fact, if she went to a five-day school, she would still have this much homework.

At home, she does Language Arts, Math, Handwriting, Spelling and a monthly project. It seems like a lot of worksheets to do, but she's managing to get them all done, so I guess it isn't so bad. It was overwhelming at first though. I got her a storage clipboard and I load it with a few worksheets at a time. She can take her clipboard with her in the van, or wherever we go, and work on her papers. I take out her finished work and put in fresh worksheets as the time goes by.

Last month her monthly project was a poster "All About Me" and this month her project is a history report. Upcoming monthly projects include a science fair project, art history, and a healthy recipe. They vary quite a bit, and you can put a lot into the project or a little. It can be tailored to the work level of the student too. I love how you can make it your own.

She also has to do two hours of online work each week. She spends one hour (all at once or a little at a time) on reading and an hour on math. The school provides the website information and keeps track of her progress. All I have to do is keep her on task. I'll admit, that's not always easy.

The only other thing we have to do for homeschooling is 100 minutes per week of physical activity. Per week, that's super easy!

In the classroom, she works on a lot of the same things plus she has music, art, French, science, history, and I'm not sure what else. She plays games, stands in line, socializes, and learns. They do all the traditional classroom stuff: say the pledge, calendar, weather, recess, lunch, wait for the bell...  They also have a behavior color coded chart. This is a hard one, she has to remember to stop talking! Some things are very hard to learn.

I'm so happy that Gracie is in a Montessori school. It emphasizes hands on learning and student lead learning, which basically means every kid can work at their own pace. No waiting for classmates to catch up and no holding others back while trying to catch up. The kids are very sweet about working at different levels and not making a big deal about it. Gracie is super competitive at home, so I figured this style of teaching might either work or be an epic fail. So far, pretty good. She's saving the competition for home I guess.

One of the best things about Montessori, and I don't know if they do this in the other program or any other program, but I love it: the classrooms are mixed grade levels. They have "Lower Elementary" which are classrooms mixed with kids grade 1, 2 and 3. And "Upper Elementary" which are grades 4, 5, and 6. Gracie is always surrounded by smaller kids, and in school she finally gets to experience being social with kids her own age and kids older than her. The older ones help the younger ones and I'm sure Gracie is learning more than just the curriculum with this experience. Plus, she's not the tallest kid in her class. She might be one of the youngest, but when you see the kids all lined up, there are a few that are taller than her and she doesn't stand out one bit from the other kids. She blends right in. I think the older kids also motivate her to learn more too. I don't know what it is like for the oldest kids in class, but I sure do like having her in class with some older kids.

The classroom doesn't have rows of desks. They have a couple of group tables, but mostly the kids work in small groups or pairs on the floor. They have little rugs that they lay out and work there, or on the big rug in the center of the room. Looks so casual and laid-back.

Another amazing thing her school does is they communicate! I know, that sounds like it should be a normal thing that all schools do, but no. Not true. Gracie is my third kid, I've been through the whole "oh, I assumed school and parents would communicate effectively" thing before. I'm always wrong about it. But this school, they really do communicate and they seem to enjoy it! One of the best tools we have is the syllabus. Yup, a first grade syllabus for the entire year. There is a curriculum map and a project outline complete with expectations, project details and due dates. All the way to the end of the school year. Guess how much this helps a mama plan? I love this!

The knowing ahead of time thing works so well, because you never know when inspiration for an assignment might strike. Gracie was inspired to learn about a piece of art, now half of her May monthly project is done. If we hadn't known about the assignment, we wouldn't have known which way to guide her learning about this piece of artwork and to save pictures and resources.  I am loving the communication!

Since we only have to send her to school three days a week, we have two weekdays to play! We try to do the homeschool work on the weekends so that we have Mondays and Tuesdays to run around and have fun. I prefer to go places during the week to avoid the weekend crowds and traffic. Plus, weekends are "Daddy time" and I like the kids to be home when he is so that they can get all of his extra time that they can. He works a lot, so we might as well go on our outings while he is at work rather than when he's home.

We go all kinds of places. Museums, parks, Seaworld, the zoo, beach, shopping, playdates, just anywhere and everywhere. Gracie usually brings her clipboard and gets a little bit done on the go. Three days of school: four days of fun! Love that class to homeschool ratio!

Fine Art at Sea World

We took a little trip to Sea World the other day; it was just us girls having some fun.  The main purpose of our outing was to get out of the heat!  It was 108 degrees at home. We could stay home and run the expensive air conditioner in the house, or we could "save energy" by filling up the gastank and driving to San Diego. As long as our comfort was going to cost us one way or another, we opted for fun. It was 76 degrees when we got to Sea World. What an amazing difference!

Since it was a homeschool day, it doubled as an educational field trip. Yup. 

Little did I realize just how great of an educational experience it would be! The kids are always learning things at Sea World; it really is a great place to educate in a fun way. 

We attended one show and it's one we haven't been to before. We usually like to see the Shamu show and the dolphin show, and then the kids are done with shows. This time we went to the sea lion and otter show, which was Halloween themed for the season.

The set was a haunted castle, and the animal actors put on quite a show! It was adorable and the kids were completely engaged in the antics of the sea lions and otters. I loved it too!

One thing that caught Gracie's eye was the painting on the set. She was pointing and pointing until I finally caught on to what she was talking about. With lots of excitement she was telling me that she's seen that painting before on a show on Tv called "Little Einsteins".  This show is a kid show on the Disney channel and they feature famous art and music, so no doubt this painting is a replica of something famous and here I am, clueless.

"Mom, what is that painting? Mom, who painted it? Mom! Mom! Mom! What is that painting called? Why are the lion and the unicorn having tea with that lady? Mom! Mom?"  Seriously, kid, watch the otter. She would not settle down until I promised that we would look it up online when we got home. Whew!

The next day...

I googled and googled trying to find information about this painting and couldn't find it. I'm obviously not much of an art googler. So, I sent an email to Sea World asking about it. So far, no response from them yet, but I'm hopeful that they'll reply.

In the meantime, and with some help from my facebook friends, I did find information about this painting. It is actually a tapestry in a series of six famous tapestries from the early 1500s. The lady is Mary Tudor, who was Queen of France in 1515 for a short period of time.  The lion represents her brother, Henry VIII and the unicorn is her husband (they are secretly married), Charles Brandon the Duke of Suffolk.  I believe Mary Tudor is the White Queen.

I was nearly brought down to the floor in a laughing fit when I read that the unicorn represented the husband. Phallic symbolism? And a lion for a brother, growling man eating big cat. That's hilarious!  I opted not to point this out to my six year old. The lady is married to a beautiful magical creature, and her brother is a lion; that is all.

We discussed how this piece of art is not a painting, but a tapestry. What is that?  It's made of cloth, sort of like a blanket that hangs on the wall. When I explained it, my little girl's eyes lit up and she made a connection to the new Disney movie, "Brave".  She's got it!

She also was excited to learn that the lady was the Queen of France. For some reason, she loves France and anything French. Her dream is to go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. She also enjoys French language lessons in school. Can you believe she's only six? What was I interested in when I was six? Dolls, red shoes, and picking dandelions.

This artwork has so many of her favorite things! Royalty, magical unicorn, France, a Disney connection too. How cool is this!

She goes to this fabulous school and is in a Montessori/Homeschool hybrid program. Her awesome teacher gave us a syllabus for the entire year before school started. Since we know what is expected of her, we know that she has an art history project due at the end of May. It's only October, but since she recognized this piece of art and it is part of a fun a Sea World show too, it's sticking in her brain. She wanted to know more about it and in doing that, she's got a good head start on her art project. I think we'll just go with it and do the art project early and keep it until May. Why not! For the project, she will not only have to explain the artwork, but make a replica of the piece. She drew it already and told me how she could make it out of fabric and glue. We're on a roll! May is always such a busy time of year, it'll be nice to get this project done and have it waiting in the wings.

Who knew an afternoon at Sea World would turn into such a great art history lesson!

*Update:  Seaworld responded to our email! There wasn't any pertinant information about the artwork that we didn't find already, but it was great to know that they researched Gracie's question and responded with an informative and thoughtful answer. This is the response:

Ms. Schumacher and Gracie,

      Thank you for your interest in Clyde & Seamore’s Spooky Adventure and Shamu at SeaWorld San Diego. The set of the Spooky Adventure show is a recreation of the original set from the show Spooky Kooky Castle that Clyde and Seamore performed in back in the 70’s and 80’s. The tapestry is a recreation of the one that appeared on that set and is called The Lady and the Unicorn. It’s a recreation of a French tapestry from the late 15^th century. As far as Shamu’s birthday, SeaWorld has never celebrated one official day as Shamu’s actual birthday. Thank you again for your interest in SeaWorld and we hope you plan to visit us again soon.

Ernie Scott  | Entertainment Creative & Performance Manager 500 SeaWorld Drive  |  San Diego  |  CA 92109 Direct: (619) 225-4281 |  Fax: (619) 226-3660

 


Thanks, Mr. Scott, we do plan to visit again soon. :)

My kid had scabies

To everyone we came in contact with between August 18 - 31st, sorry, but you might have scabies now. Let's think... where all did we go and who did we see?

Gracie spent two nights in San Diego with Katie and Henry.  She had a few bumps between her fingers that were itchy when she left, but the day she came home, her left hand and arm were covered in bumps.  Her sister was puking and had a fever. What a way to end a sleepover!  She really didn't have anything noticeable on her hand or arm until she woke up on  Aug 21st.

This is the first day of (noticeable) scabies:

We quickly decided she has eczema. Yup, that must be it. We rubbed cortizone cream on her and went on with our day. We did decide that the rash was too ugly for school, so we went shopping and got her some long sleeve tops. I also bought her some Eczema lotion.

The next day was the first day of school. I had her wear long sleeves, but she insisted on pulling up her sleeves and showing her friends her eczema rash. They all touched it to feel how bumpy her arm was. In hindsight, ewww.

I decided maybe I should take her to the doctor. Eczema is weird, but this was more weird. My husband insisted it was eczema though, and he's usually right about such things. Here it is on  Aug 24th:

The doctor said, "Gracie, Your daddy is a smart man and he's usually right. But not this time. It isn't eczema."  It was Scabies. I had no idea what that is, so I said, "Hmm, Ok." She prescribed a wash and gave me instructions to spread this wash-lotion all over my child from the neck down right before bedtime. In the morning after the lotion has been on her for 12 hours, shower it off. The rash should go away after that treatment. She also prescribed a steroid cream just in case the wash didn't work. She said if the wash doesn't make it better, then it's probably a contact dermatitis and to use the steroid cream. Give it three days to see if the wash treatment works first. And, she told me that Scabies is very contagious. She was amazed that nobody else in the family had it. Yet.

I dropped off the prescription at the drugstore and went on home to look up what Scabies is. Never heard of it.

Once I googled Scabies and found out that it is little bugs under the skin, I was so grossed out! Disgusting! Ewww! My kid has scabies! AAAAAAA!!!

My husband was equally disgusted, but he knew what Scabies was, just had never seen it before. We looked on Google images. So very gross, but the rash matched what we saw.  The worst part is that it is often a venereal disease. Lots of the google images were of body parts we shouldn't have to look at on the computer, especially icky covered in this rash.  I can safely say, it's not just a social disease, kids get it too. I suppose, in reality, any rash or virus or anything passed from person to person could be considered a venereal disease. But, this sure made the gross aspect of her rash even more disgusting.

The wash was a tube of lotion and the active ingredient in it was the same as the flea powder for pets. So, I picked up a container of carpet cleaner in the pet aisle for killing fleas. Same ingredient. Basically, we spread a pesticide all over our kid.

After showering and waiting a few hours, her rash looked like this on the 25th: Remarkable difference!

And I tore apart her room in an effort to kill any bugs that might be in the carpet or mattresses. I used a liberal amount of the pesticide carpet powder and let it sit for four hours then vacuumed thoroughly.

Anything washable, went into the wash. All toys, pillows, bedding, clothing, etc  was put in the washer on Hotter Than Hot setting and dried the same way. I didn't want any bugs to survive my wrath!

Her rash looked a ton better, but I still had the heebie-jeebies so I repeated the wash just on her arm and hand a couple of days later. The life cycle of a scabe could mean that the next generation would hatch and thrive if the eggs didn't die in the first wash. But, I didn't have enough of the pesticide wash to cover her all over, so I just did the affected area. This wasn't recommended by the doctor, pharmacist, instructions on the lotion, google nor anyone for that matter. But the Mom-Doctor in me thought it was a good idea, so I went with it.

Here is her rash a few days later on Aug 29th:

You can still see that her skin is splotched with what were once bumps and spots. The palm of her hand still had bumps, but none were white like they were before. She was keeping that hand balled up in a fist a lot though, and I wonder if it itched more, plus being in a fist probably made her palm warmer and darker. All the more attractive for the bugs. The little bit of the rash that was left was under my watchful eye, but for the most part the scabies rash was gone. Over the next few days it disappeared all together.

Nobody else ever got it and it never spread beyond her one hand and arm. I never heard anything from any of her friends, so I don't think they got it even though she had her little buddies all touching her arm. And, I didn't hear from the teacher neither. The dog didn't have fleas, so she didn't get it from the dog. Nobody knows where she got scabies or why it didn't spread. But, it was scabies. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have improved after the pesticide wash. Hopefully we never see it again.

It's pretty embarrassing to say, "My kid had scabies" because it's so disgusting. But I decided to post this with full disclosure because I had a hard time finding scabies in kids on google. If anyone is wondering, this  is what scabies looks like on a six-year-old. At least, on my six-year-old.

If your six-year-old has a rash like this, I sure hope she's not so loud and bold and tells everyone she meets, "I have scabies. See? Wanna feel it? My dad thought it was eczema but he was wrong."  So embarrassing!