Memory!

Todd has a great long term memory. He can remember, with detail, moments of his childhood, often down to what he was wearing. He remembers every face he has ever seen. And, he has an uncanny ability to remember nearly every candidate he has worked with in his 15 year recruiting career.  Ask him to remember to call you back, to relay a message, or to know the date of your upcoming plan, and he may not!!
In all the ways Todd's memory excels, mine does not!   Sure, I can remember the phone numbers of all of my childhood friends. I can remember most people's, even random people in my life, birth date. I can remember first and middle names of most people's children. Yet, I usually have no idea why I opened the fridge, went upstairs, or dialed your number. Despite remembering childhood phone numbers I have no reason to call them (they no longer live there) and knowing peoples birth dates does not help since I usually forget on the actual day. Like I said, I have a  terrible memory.
Chase has always had an unbelievable memory. He remembers things no one else does and constantly refers to things of yesterday (or last month or last year!)
Now, his new favorite thing to do is to play the memory game. He loves it!  Every night we must play before bed and everyday we must play several games. Sometimes we play color memory, more often we play Spiderman memory.
When we first started playing we only used a few pairs. But, as time has passed and his skills have improved we have played with 20 or so pairs. Chase concentrates so hard during every game and you can see the inner workings of his mind as he is learning to use the whole board. You can watch his eyes light up when anyone of us turns over the other half of a card we have already seen. Chase is really good at the game. Sure, Todd and I let him win often, but he is really good and can and does win on his own.
Ryder plays with us too. He enjoys the game but is not quite as obsessed with it as Chase.
Although lately we have seen much improvement from Ryder, his desire to concentrate through 20 pairs is just minimal. Hs style of play involves turning over the same card every time. As if, suddenly, Iron Man will be wearing the Spidey mask.  He plays, as he does most things, as only Ryder could.  He does not have the same focus and, though frustrating for us, he has a good time doing it his own way.  And, perhaps he is on to something because yesterday he beat me, fair and square.