On childhood, repetition, and the stories that fill a home
There are many movies in the world.
Thousands, probably. Maybe more.
In our family, there are about four.
They rotate with remarkable dedication. A few weeks of Inside Out. Then a sudden pivot to The Wild Robot. Sometimes a nostalgic return to an old favorite like it’s being rediscovered for the first time.
Right now, Holden is very committed to Inside Out. Caleb has also had his phases with it. At one point, it felt like the entire emotional landscape of our house was narrated by animated feelings.
Children have an extraordinary tolerance for repetition. They don’t tire of a story the way adults do. In fact, they seem to prefer it that way.
The familiar opening music.
The same jokes.
The same lines delivered at exactly the same moments.
The first time I watched Finding Nemo with the boys, it felt like a movie night.
By the twentieth, I started to understand something about children that adults tend to forget.
They aren’t watching for surprise.
They’re watching for certainty.
They want to know exactly what will happen next. They want the reassurance that the story will unfold the way it always does.
The characters will say the same things. The ending will arrive right on time.
Nothing in the world of that story will suddenly change.
Children find comfort in that.
And if I’m honest, sometimes I do too.
When I’m stressed, or sad, or just don’t know what to watch, I turn on Grey’s Anatomy. It’s my emotional support show. I’ve seen enough of it that the rhythm feels familiar. The characters. The music. The pacing of the episodes.
It comforts me.
It doesn’t matter that I know how it ends. It still quietly devastates me when someone dies.
I don’t usually rewatch shows or reread books. But sometimes I understand the instinct.
Sometimes you don’t want a new story.
Sometimes you want the one that already knows how to hold you.
I’ve seen that pattern before.
When Caleb was little, there was a long stretch where our house was basically Lilo & Stitch. The movie. The soundtrack. The same scenes replayed again and again.
That was also how the Elvis phase happened.
Because of the movie.
For a brief period around age five, Caleb became deeply committed to Elvis Presley. He would stand near the Echo and ask Alexa, very seriously, to play "Suspicious Minds," then listen like it was the most important song ever recorded.
That phase passed, the way they all do.
There was also the Secret Life of Pets phase. I had to buy him a Mel stuffed animal. Later, Holden needed one too. For a while those little dogs lived everywhere in our house.
There was the Sing and Sing 2 era. I didn’t mind that one as much. The music was actually pretty good.
And then there was the Charlie Brown Christmas season.
It started sometime in the fall last year and lasted well past the holidays. Almost every night, Caleb would make popcorn and settle in to watch it. The same movie. The same ritual.
Sometimes he and Holden would act out the quick hand movements before the little reveal of the tree. They loved that part. They loved the way the characters dance to the piano music. They’d laugh every time.
We tried, occasionally, to introduce the other holiday versions when the timeline made sense. The Thanksgiving one. The Great Pumpkin.
Caleb almost always turned them down.
Christmas only.
Looking back now, it feels like its own small era in our house.
Some of these phases I welcomed. Some of them tested my patience.
But looking back, I miss almost all of them.
Last year when the live-action Lilo & Stitch came out, I took both boys to the theater. For a moment it felt like stepping back into that earlier phase.
For a little while, the movie belonged to our house again.
Now Holden has his own rotations.
Inside Out. K-Pop Demon Hunters.
The songs have made their way into the car playlist. Caleb knows them too. They request them like they’re part of the permanent soundtrack of our lives. We’ve listened enough times that I can sing “Golden” like I’m performing with Huntrix. We ran to “Soda Pop” all last fall.
By now, I know exactly how this works.
Right now it feels endless. The same movie. The same songs. The same lines spoken before the characters even say them.
But childhood moves faster than the movie rotation.
One day the movie will end, and we won’t start it again.
For now, though, the opening music plays, and somewhere from the couch a small voice says,
“Again.”
