Last week, he wrote a short story as part of a school assignment. Of course, his chose for his subjects Egypt and a pharaoh.
Later, he enlarged this (very brief) story into a play (one act) whose star role was played, of course, Â by none other than Robert Charles, Himself.
He and his mother made his costume, a tunic ( read: pillowcase) with a wide circular paper collar, tie sash belt and wristlets .
Pharaoh Robert chose to pose for this playbill in front of the stairs that go to his homeschool classroom. The staircase is reminiscent of the pyramids he saw last week at Epcot, though, he was quick to point out,  this sort of pyramid with stairs would be Aztec, not Egyptian.
For an early Valentine’s Day gift, I embroidered this shirt for him. He loved it.
As we discussed whether the image is of King Tutankamun or King Khufu, I mentioned that King Tut was only 18 years old when he was the pharaoh.
“He was 18 when he DIED, Nana,” Robert said as he corrected me. For my further edification he informed me, “He was like 10 when he was made the king.” I didn’t question his facts at the time, though I have since done a little research. Turns out that Tut was crowned at the tender age of 9. I can’t wait to tell that little smarty pants.
I love Embroidery Library www.emblibrary.com, where I got the King Tut design. At that site, you can find designs on any topic, download it immediately (even at 2 a.m.!). Another bonus is that their search engine is excellent. And I love machine embroidery for enabling me to address my grandchildren’s specific interests in a timely manner. Where would I ever find an Egyptophile shirt for Robert?
The text was added by me. I know “Egyptophile” is really one unhyphenated word, but the design required splitting. Unofficially authorized by “embroiderer’s license,” I feel empowered to modify the English language as needed.
I would never have believed that I would be embroidering a pharaoh. Grandchildren broaden your horizons.
Nana fun: My son just spent some time with Urban Meyer, former football coach for University of Florida. Urban very generously signed several souvenir items for Ryan’s children, Robert and Laurel. On a football , Coach Meyer wrote: To Robert, future UF Gator.
We were discussing this with Robert and asked if he would like to go to University of Florida when he went to college. He replied, “No, I want to go to Universal Studios.” With Robert we never know if he actually intended to be witty or if he just made a 5 year-old’s vocabulary error.