Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Indy, the Screaming Girl and Baby Jock

Paulie is really into the kind of play that I think is just great for kids - role-playing, imaginative play. He moves quickly from one obsession to the next, but it's always the same kind of deal. He loves to create dialogue and adventures for whoever is the guy du jour. Lately he's been really into Batman, Spider-Man, Legos, Indiana Jones and Star Wars. Ben got Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii, and Paul loves to watch him play. Paulie tries to recruit Ben into his kind of play: "Ben, you can be Indy and I'll be the Screaming Go-el!" The Screaming Girl, or "go-el" as Paul pronounces it, is a character in Lego Indiana Jones who screams whenever you press a certain button. Ben has never been much into Paul's type of play. He's always been a more structured kind of guy: games, sports, video games. I'm hoping that when Gus gets bigger he will become a playmate in Paul's adventures. Paul's working on getting him on his side already. He's taken to calling Gus "Baby Jock." Jock is another Indiana Jones character.

As a girl, my best friend and I used to play Barbies for probably eight hours a day, so I'm delighted to watch Paul play in his pretend universe. I don't care if he's calling himself the Screaming Go-el, or even Princess Leia ("Are you sure about that?" Mark asked him. "Yup!" said Paul.), as he's been doing lately, as long as he keeps using that imagination.

No comments: