Paul Play

There is such an age gap between Rachel and Andy that they really never played together. Of course, they did things together and of course, Rachel taught Andy bunches of stuff. If I had to name the single largest thing that Andy learned from Rachel, it would have been vocabulary. That kid was speaking full sentences, never messed up his pronouns and had a very large vocabulary at a young, young age. Because he worshiped Rachel and her friends and they talked. A lot. So he needed to keep up.

But Rachel and Andy never really played together.

I thought 4 years was going to be too far too. Too much of an age gap. And in some respects it is, but it's balanced out by the fact that all the kids in the neighborhood are varying ages. Last summer, though, Paul finally hit an age that Andy could relate to and ever since, there have been plenty of playing moments.

The point of the video was really two-fold: That may be Paul on the ground with the Batcave and various superheros, and that may be Paul's alien jabber instead of Andyspeak, but this scenario was learned from big brother. Every action, every inflection of the jabber, every motion is copied from Andy and how Andy plays.

I realize that probably Paul would do a lot of this imaginative play on his own, regardless of brotherly influence. But Rachel was never one to play like this. Rachel would have arranged the Batcave's contents into perfect order with all the superheros put into their respective rooms with various decor and furniture and then she would have been done. So there's really no telling whether Paul has his own wide imagination or has an extension of his brothers.

Oh yeah. The other reason is that I'm trying desperately to get Paul's alien jabber on video before it disappears. The words are becoming more clearer and while I'm ecstatic, the jabber is really cute and funny and I am going to miss it.