Over and Over Again...

It's amazing the qualities of yourself that you see manifested in your child, even at the tender age of two.  I am a repetition person.  It's part of my learning style.  If I find a new song I like, I listen to it over and over.  If I see a movie I like, I watch it multiple times.  Favorite books?  Same thing.  When I was a child, I watched the Disney version of Robin Hood so many times that my father resorted to hiding it because he was just that sick of it.  No problem!  I had the entire script memorized at the age of two so I just ran around the house reciting it.  My uncle bought us The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was about four, and I watched it over and over and over.

(photo credit)

Fast-forward twenty-three years.  It's Christmas and, because my parents remembered (fondly, I'm sure) how very much I enjoyed it as a child, they give me the DVD version of that movie.  I'm stoked - I love to watch movies from my childhood, so after my son went to bed one night I popped it in.  Almost like he knew we were having fun without him, he began to fuss.  My husband got him and brought him out to me and he was mesmerized.  Since then, he always wants to "Watch Lucy, Mommy! Watch Lucy and Edmund and Aslan!"  Now he runs around saying lines from the movie: "And there's a fawn, and there's a witch, and it's called Narnia! Come and see!"  The other day we were all in the car driving and he said "Look, look quick! There it is!" We started looking out the window, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "It's a beaver! I saw the tail." We looked at each other and started cracking up.

This story has some serious sentimental ties to my childhood.  Not only did I grow up watching this movie, it is the first book I remember my father reading to me.  It's why lions are my favorite animal.  It's one of the reasons I love C.S. Lewis so much.  And it's one of the first ways I really understood who Jesus was and what His sacrifice meant.  We probably let Charlie watch it too much.  There is probably some specialist somewhere who would shake his finger and lecture me if he could, but I've decided that I don't care.  I am making a parenting call, and if this story has even a fraction of the influence on my son that it has had on me, it is time well-spent.