Appearances can be deceiving...

Yesterday we had our friends Julie, Jonah, and Brooke over to play. What do you see here? Two younger kids (Brooke and Colby are about 3 mos apart in age) who are not able to get along socially because they're too young? And two older kids (Jonah is almost 4 and Kailin is 2.5(and change)) who are getting along great, having formed a strong friendship and having the social skills required to mediate some of their own disagreements and differences of opinion? WRONG. What you actually see is Colby having a sympathy cry along with his friend Brooke. It was hysterical. Brooke came up to Colby, squatted down, and started crying for no reason! Within a couple seconds Colby was wearing a frown and a minute after that, they were squalling in unison - for no apparent reason! They either played independently or got along great all day despite their relative social inexperience.

The older two fought like cats and dogs all day (as they are frequently wont to do....) and this picture was a rare amiable moment. We swear they will end up married someday - they are constantly switching between being very caring and sweet toward each other and being annoyed by each other. We can't wait until they're able to hash it out themselves without constant intervention from the moms!! We had a good laugh about what would happen if adults fought the way kids do - have a slight disagreement or misunderstanding and just let 'er rip - scream in the face of the offender!!

All in all, though, we had a great day (as we always do when they visit) and we moms truly enjoyed watching our kids play together.

We had our friends Leslie and Mia over for dinner last night and that went well, too. Kailin and Mia met at Cricket School - Mia is Kailin's first friend where I wasn't friends with the parent(s) first. (Good thing Mia's mom is so likable! I thank my lucky stars that I don't need to grin and bear it when they come to play!) The girls usually get along pretty well and last night was no exception - right up til the end where they were both tired and ready for bed. Neither one was very interested in playing with Kailin's new brother - but that was okay because he wasn't particularly interested in playing with them, either! I was able to have a great (read very therapeutic) chat with Leslie while the girls played.

Another bath attempt this morning, so wish me luck. We have an open house this Sunday so we'll be commencing to clean and organize the house today. We'll need all the luck we can get on that front!!