In the book, a girl and her Abuela (Grandma) fly around NYC. They visit the Statue of Liberty.
For the past two weeks, it has been all about Dr. LaBootie. Hours and hours, and days and days, of questions. If you think about it, it is a hard thing to explain. "Mommy, Dr. LaBootie she is a woman?" "Lijoch (children) fall out of her head?" "Climb up her?" I posted on Facebook that I was having a hard time explaining the concept to Meazi. Here are some things that people suggested:From Ms. Woo: Tell her she's the nation's first recognized drag queen. At least, that will be my starting point.
From Blueberry's Mom: Social studies teacher says she is America's false promise.
From Marc: Giant Walmart greeter welcoming all imported folks from around the world.
I have witty friends.
Still, I wasn't getting anywhere. After four days we had finally established that The Statue of Liberty was not a real woman. This was a big step. However, we had a setback. DISCLAIMER: I sound exasperated here, but days before we had already established that she was not a real woman! I am usually really nice to her.
When Meazi heard that mommy and daddy had actually been to the Statue of Liberty together, she really wanted to see pictures.Unfortunately the person we asked to take our picture there, took a picture of the brick wall at the base of Lady Liberty. We could have been in an alley in east Los Angeles. Not a helpful picture. Not at all.
I pulled up every YouTube video I could find, but really they weren't great. Finally, this weekend we went to the library and got two books for kids about the statue. We also picked up Ken Burns' documentary.
Dad made burgers, and we had a special lunchtime viewing in the living room.
The movie wasn't great. Meazi was really interested in seeing the inside of the statue, "Stairs in her stomach mommy?" In the film, when they actually bring the camera into the statue, it is all in fast forward (Is that what the Ken Burns effect is? Truly annoying). Steven kept trying to freeze the frames so that we could give Meazi a realistic view of what it is like. Sigh.
Still, the movie and the books seemed to help Meazi grasp the size and breadth of the statue. She seemed to have a firmer grasp on the whole concept.
Until Steven decided to send us this picture from work ...
How the hell do I explain this?
