(SB) Disney’s The Lion King came out about 6 weeks before Gabriel was born and I could talk about the obvious things, like how he was the firstborn male and how 30 years later the circle of life has taken on even more poignancy than it did when it first came out. Instead, I’m gonna focus on the particular time of life when this movie and song were very much a part of our lives.
It is fall of 1995. Larry, Gabriel and a very pregnant me had just moved into a bigger apartment a few months prior to prepare for the birth of our second child. Gabriel has become obsessed with the movie the Lion King and now that the new baby is here (Connor) I am more than willing to let him watch it. And watch it he does, like twice a day for a very long time. I know in this day, where kids have screens from the moment they can hold them, letting my toddler son watch a Disney movie every day even twice a day might not seem like a big deal but it was to me back in 1995. I felt like such a huge failure as a mother to use the TV as a babysitter but looking back on it that movie was such a huge help to me. I honestly do not know how I would have survived without that distraction.
Having a second child might not double the workload but it certainly increases it and when they are very close in age (13 months) it seems like it might never end. Larry and I still worked different shifts and now he was in a position where he traveled occasionally for work as well so those very early days were tough on all of us. So, it was so easy to just put the Lion King VHS into the VCR and let it babysit the child who was mobile while I put the immobile one in a swing or walker so I could get things done.
Now though when I think of this movie, I don’t have that same feeling of failure instead I think about that little apartment, that was a step up for us at the time, and the memories we made there as a family and the soundtrack to the Lion King is a big part of that.
(LB) Although I was working full-time, I still fell victim to the incessant watching, or at least hearing, this movie. It's funny to think about how parents today will never experience the watch, rewind, watch, rewind, watch, eject and replace because the first VHS tape has literally worn out due to all the playing.
But what parents don't get away from is the things their children fall in love with, and even though hearing the same song for the one billionth time makes you want to shove an ice pick into your ears, you just keep playing it and singing it and dancing to it. And those are the memories you treasure...
P.S. This might not be our original first copy, but it is our original last copy. Note all the patina AND the fact that it is rewound, ready for its next viewing. When we die, our kids are so screwed with all the cleanup they will have to do...
P.P.S. At the time, he was Elton John. Not Sir Elton John...he wasn't knighted until 1998.
Ghost of a Chance 