Card Sharp as a Tack

Maia is a card sharp.

We have a (somewhat reduced) deck of Charlie and Lola cards that Maia likes to play the memory games Pairs and Flip-Flop. In each, you lay out the cards face down and flip over two to see if you have a pair (if they match) or a flip-flop (if there is a connection between the cards...ie. cereal and bananas, bird and nest). She is a FIEND at this game. Her phenomenal memory means she regularly beats me, and I stopped letting her win ages ago.

She is also getting pretty well acquainted with the concept of Bending The Rules To Suit. If you are doing well at a game of Pairs, and she turns over a flip-flop winning pair, she claims that. Then has another go.

However, if, later on, you turn over a flip-flop, she claims to be playing Pairs, and won't let you go again. Grrr. What may be cute now is going to get her beaten up later in life, so I have started to explain the benefits of Playing By The Rules. She is not yet convinced.

Mum and Maia moved on to Real Cards the other day, and she is pretty good at those too. They were naming the suits, and she remembered all of them apart from one. After a little think, she triumphantly announced the missing suit was called "buckets!"

And so it shall be from now on.