Flip-Flop!

He is currently a fan of the British show Charlie and Lola, a very well-made show depicting the sibling relationship between an affectionate elder brother and his precocious little sister. In one of the shows, they play a game called flip-flop, which is a cousin of the memory game we know, except that the pair of cards make a flip-flop when the pictures complement each other in some way rather than being the same image.

So we have taken to calling the memory game we play flip-flop these days. He likes playing it almost everyday and calls upon one of us to play at least three games in a row. I am not sure if it is my not paying attention much, or he being good at it, he seems to have the cards memorised better than I do, sometimes. In the beginning, he would keep opening the cards until he found a pair, but he understands the concept much better now. If he happens to open mismatched cards during his turn and he remembers where the pair of one of the cards was, he reserves it for his next turn and won't let us open those cards. When he can't remember where the other card of the pair was, he starts pointing to each card and asks, "Is it this one? Is it this one?" He doesn't buy any of the "I don't know, or I don't remember", either. He seeks help and helps us out too: he will point to the matching card when we open one, when he remembers.

He misplaced one of the cards today and didn't understand when I said one of the cards is missing and pointed out the gap in the rows. He insisted that "It bees like that(bees = will be/should be/must be). When you play, the gap goes away." The look of consternation on his face when three unopened cards remained at the end was priceless. The wheels slowly turned in his head and then he agreed that we should go downstairs and look for the missing card.