I love how the lil critter on the stairs is just serenely looking at the scene unfolding in front of him. You should get him a couple books of poetry for Christmas, or something similar.
That's my friend's kid. Observing from a distance, because our kids were actually being punished here
Their mom had just given them a good chewing out for extreme failing to get along, being unreasonably disruptive of our activities, and being shitty towards me when I tried to step in and work out solutions in a positive manner.
The younger one was seething mad (he has anger issues), so mom did the worst possible thing at that point. Forced him to swallow that salt and give his brother a hug, and then me a group hug. My smile is so genuine, because I'm laughing at their struggle.
There's few things sweeter than breaking a kid who really wants to be angry. The older one used to be so easy. For years, I could end any unreasonable tantrum by looking him dead in the eyes and saying "You're going to laugh." He'd then fall down unable to stop himself from laughing, rebound into increased anger at his inability to continue expressing anger, start laughing at himself because of how ridiculous his weird laughing anger struggle sounds, then drop the issue and move on after some alternating between growling and laughing in this fashion. Still works sometimes.
I don't know if this is horrible parenting or not (belittling? emotionally manipulative? I don't know...), but when a kid is being super emotional about something really stupid, it's impossible to resist sometimes. And getting them to laugh at themselves for being ridiculous always seemed so fitting.
Board games were Captain Sonar and Roll for the Galaxy, which were both first times for us over the weekend.