"I like them now"

My friend's eldest is a sweet but, sensitive boy. He likes things a particular way (don't most of us) but, hasn't quite built up the tools he needs to deal with things being different or difficult- he's only 5. One of the challenges to building our friendship would be how well our kids play together - it's just no fun socializing if the kids are squabbling. As we were all getting in our cars he said to his mother, "I had fun today, I like them now!" I got a kick out of that though, in all seriousness, I'm glad he said it.
My husband has friends whose 3rd and 4th children are the same ages as our first 2. (the wife's first 2 are late teen/early 20's) A year or 2 ago their daughter gave our eldest her first experience of someone being truly just mean. She suddenly approached us and shoved our girl so hard that she fell on the floor. She didn't want to go near them for a long time. After a few months of avoidance (precipitated by the fact that the mom didn't say one word to her daughter and the dad just said the child's name in a disapproving tone) my husband simply told him "We don't come over because our kid is still upset at how mean your kid was to her." I never did hear what the reply was but, they're still friends; they just do things without kids. That wouldn't be so easy for a woman especially if they became friends after having kids.
Anyway, I'm glad we had a good play date yesterday.