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Dec. 22nd, 2007 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday I spent some time with the family for pre-xmas family togetherness.
My niece Gwendolyn is three years old. (Her third birthday was August 31, so she's a little less than three and a half.) She has learned to play "the people game". It's what Gwen calls Memory, the card game where you have a deck of thirty-some cards, maybe eighteen pairs, depicting people. (Basketball Bill, Fireman Frank, Doctor Dan, and so forth.) You shuffle, put the cards face down in a grid, and turn over two at a time. You keep the matches and go again when you find a match. You put non-matching cards back face-down where they were before you flipped them over.
We played twice. The first time, brother-the-younger shuffled the cards and laid them out. I was all like, "So, you're going to help Gwen play, right?" Brother the younger said, "She doesn't need help." Cue mental voice: O-kay, so Gwen plays by herself. You go on with that, brother-the-younger. Awww, look, she knows the rules! Isn't that cute? So I am playing memory with Gwen. Cute blond bowl cut? Check. Big blue eyes? Check. Little-girl diction punctuated with big grins? Check. Mind like a steel trap? WTF?
Halfway through the first game, I've moved from Awww, how cute! to Fuck, I'm going to lose to a three-year-old." Gwen remembers cards from seven, eight moves ago. She doesn't hesitate, just reaches exactly where they were and pulls them up and says who the character is triumphantly, big-grin. "Dat Fireman Fwank!" And yes, I lost by four or five pairs to a three year old. Pwn4g3, for real. (She'd do even better if she were taught, explicitly, to turn over "new" cards for the first flip and then try to match those with an already-known mate or explore further if she flips an unmated card. Setting an exploration strategy for early in the game would also help her, but I'm not going to be the one to teach this crap. Perhaps Nana would like to explicate the finer points of Memory for Gwendar.)
The second time, I laid the cards out and I busted my ass and I beat the three year old, who was distracted by Krista's son and not paying very much attention to the people game. (Joe says she beats him about two out of three when she's trying. Joe is an attorney and generally a pretty sharp cookie.) The whole thing was somewhat disconcerting. I R SMRT. I should not have to work to beat an inattentive three year old child.
Suddenly, it's very not-reassuring that Gwen is a huge Darth Vader fan. I can only hope that she does not dress her stormtroopers in pink armor.
My niece Gwendolyn is three years old. (Her third birthday was August 31, so she's a little less than three and a half.) She has learned to play "the people game". It's what Gwen calls Memory, the card game where you have a deck of thirty-some cards, maybe eighteen pairs, depicting people. (Basketball Bill, Fireman Frank, Doctor Dan, and so forth.) You shuffle, put the cards face down in a grid, and turn over two at a time. You keep the matches and go again when you find a match. You put non-matching cards back face-down where they were before you flipped them over.
We played twice. The first time, brother-the-younger shuffled the cards and laid them out. I was all like, "So, you're going to help Gwen play, right?" Brother the younger said, "She doesn't need help." Cue mental voice: O-kay, so Gwen plays by herself. You go on with that, brother-the-younger. Awww, look, she knows the rules! Isn't that cute? So I am playing memory with Gwen. Cute blond bowl cut? Check. Big blue eyes? Check. Little-girl diction punctuated with big grins? Check. Mind like a steel trap? WTF?
Halfway through the first game, I've moved from Awww, how cute! to Fuck, I'm going to lose to a three-year-old." Gwen remembers cards from seven, eight moves ago. She doesn't hesitate, just reaches exactly where they were and pulls them up and says who the character is triumphantly, big-grin. "Dat Fireman Fwank!" And yes, I lost by four or five pairs to a three year old. Pwn4g3, for real. (She'd do even better if she were taught, explicitly, to turn over "new" cards for the first flip and then try to match those with an already-known mate or explore further if she flips an unmated card. Setting an exploration strategy for early in the game would also help her, but I'm not going to be the one to teach this crap. Perhaps Nana would like to explicate the finer points of Memory for Gwendar.)
The second time, I laid the cards out and I busted my ass and I beat the three year old, who was distracted by Krista's son and not paying very much attention to the people game. (Joe says she beats him about two out of three when she's trying. Joe is an attorney and generally a pretty sharp cookie.) The whole thing was somewhat disconcerting. I R SMRT. I should not have to work to beat an inattentive three year old child.
Suddenly, it's very not-reassuring that Gwen is a huge Darth Vader fan. I can only hope that she does not dress her stormtroopers in pink armor.
