Lessons Learned from the Lion King

We've watched The Lion King more in the past month or so than I think I've watched it in all the time since it came out back in 1994. Yup, 1994. I couldn't believe it whem IMDB told me that'd how old it was either. But I digress...

You know that part of the movie where Rafiki (or as Charlotte calls him, Monkeeeeeeey eeh eeh ahh) talks to Simba about learning from the past? What, you don't have the entire movie memorized like I do? Well let me jog your memory:


For a long time I didn't take as many photos of Charlotte as I should have. At first it was because I was a harried new momma and it took all that was in me to feed and clothe the child, let alone photograph the process. But as time went by I found myself not taking many pictures because of regret - because I was sad that I didn't take more pictures of her early on and because I subconsciously thought that having loads and loads of pictures of her as a toddler would just draw more attention to the fact that I'd failed at getting tons of photos of her as a newborn and infant. It's dumb, I know, but it's how I felt.

Now I've long since realized how ridiculous I was being and started snapping photo after photo of my little monkey, but I didn't really think about the situation in depth until I was watching this scene with her. It stinks that I don't have a ton of photos of her from her early days. And it hurts when I see gorgeous photos like these and realize that I can't go back and get some of my own (let me just say that I'm super thankful that my mom is a picture taking fool!). But like Rafiki says, I can choose to run from the past by keeping my camera neatly tucked away in it's bag, or I can choose to learn from the past by aiming to be as snappy happy as my mom. I'm choosing the latter.

Interesting how a kids movie can sort of punch you in the gut (of whap you over the head with a stick in Simba's case) and make you realize how much of a dork you're being. Any movie ever done that for you?