candy land

I have been thinking lately about how well Eleanor and Thomas play together (even though they do fight sometimes), and realized that they don't often have play dates, or many chances to play with friends their own age without each other there. They tend to play with each other, or on their own unless they are at school.
We recently got Eleanor's report card, and it points out the fact that some play dates with some kids from her class would help her deal with the inevitable meltdown that occurs almost daily when we drop her off for school.
Thomas has a friend from preschool that he likes to play with, and to help make sure that he isn't going to have the same issues, today we brought Marcus home with us for Thomas to have some time with someone other than Eleanor, somewhere other than school. I was a bit worried that the boys were going to start doing a bunch of destructive boy things, but earlier as I made lunch everything was under control. Then came time to clean up after lunch, and do the dishes. Dishes happens to be one of my least favorite chores, and this was the time that I was most concerned about the house being destroyed so I did them very quickly.
All was pretty quiet while I washed, and as quick as I was, when I was done, I went down the hall to see what all the quiet was about. If you have kids, you understand that very quiet quite often leads to big trouble.
I peeked around the corner, and there were the two boys, playing a game of Candyland. Without any prompting from me, without any fighting, or complaining. I have to say I was impressed.
I don't know that the game actually got finished, or if they lost interest before the end, but there never was a fight over it, and there was no issue with the boys cleaning up all the toys before I put a movie on for them.
Now I am scared, because the movie of choice- Star Wars Return of the Jedi. Now I know that there is going to be destruction, from the moment they were deciding who was going to be Skywalker. I think it is time for me to go and monitor the situation before someone loses an eye, I don't want to spend the evening in the hospital.
Mostly because the Canucks are playing game 2 at 6p.m., and there is no way we would be home by then.