Getting Uno Up On Pairs

We have graduated from Pairs/Flip-Flop to Uno.

Proud/Boasting Mummy Moment coming up...

Uno is a moderately complicated card game that involves matching numbers or colours and playing a variety of Action Cards. It says on the packet that it is for ages 7+. But Maia has got it. She can play really quite well.

We play open (cards on the table) so she gets help/we make sure she doesn't cheat. Also, she has trouble holding all 7 cards in her hand at once.

Maybe that is why they say it is for ages 7+. Hand size...

Actually, no...I am going to take it that she is massively advanced and super-bright. Obviously.

:D

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.

4. Four. FOUR!?!?!!

Bloody hell - I cannot believe it! Miss Maia Ani-jo Sunshine Packington-Cull is FOUR. (And a day. Bad Blogging Mummy)

It is so odd that four years ago, I didn't even know her. And now I can't imagine my life without her.

Happy Birthday, my most excellent girl.

Papi's Riposte/Re-Post

No, really...

This is all a rather pathetic and wimpish attempt to divert attention and sympathy away from the Real Right Thumb Disaster.

Which happened about the same time, to about the same anatomical region, and has not (yet) been cyber-broadcast!

You can picture, if you will, the scene...

H-overworked, h-underpaid, hassled and harried, hungry humble hemployee arrives home hexausted and (as is his wont) opens fridge and peers inside for snackables prior to dinner.

Spotting a likely quiche, he grabs quiche dish with right hand and attempts to transport it to kitchen counter with every intention of carving it into munchable slices while simultaneously pouring glass of red wine.

At which point said quiche dish shatters for no apparent reason (and yes we did buy it at Kelly's, if you must know).

Said quiche dish, being empty of quiche thumb-side and heavy with quicheness on opposite side, gravity then takes over and everything then starts heading south at a considerable rate of knots.

All that is, except for a portion of shattered porcelain, which tarries awhile en route to gouge huge chunks of thumb.

Dinner is no longer an immediate or viable prospect.

During 4 hours in ER and en route to 20 stitches I tried to enliven proceedings

"Are you allergic to anything?" said the nurse

"Only quiche dishes" said I.

Then I tried a real ancient one on the doctor...

"Will I be able to play the violin after this?" Answer...... "I don't see why not"

"Well, I'd better start taking lessons then"

Oh dear - you see what boredom does!

Anyhow.

Just for the record, I myself and me am not guilty of extreme klutz-ness in shutting my own digit in the doorjamb.

Ergo........I am a victim of circumstance and, as such, far more deserving of tender sympathy.


Posted by Papi