Welcome to the Clubhouse!

The fourth of July for our families is kind of a big deal.  We get together twice a year, Christmas and The fourth of July!  My husband and I are both from the same town in Nebraska, where both of our parents still reside. 
So this year on my side of the family it was me, John boy, and the boys, my parents and my niece and nephew.  My niece and nephew just love my boys, and vice versa.  My oldest is into the tweens, so he spent a lot of time with the aunts & uncles.  But my youngest just loved being around the two younger kiddos, and finally being the oldest.  They did everything together they went to the ballpark together to catch a game, and buy candy.  They had a ball at the pool together playing and buying candy.  But the most memorable thing the three of them did together, will be talked about for the rest of their lives.

They made a clubhouse.  It sounds so cute and simple.  One of the kids announced we're going to eat our lunch in the clubhouse, my mom and I were like oh great and Grandma went out to give them lunch and they had put a tiny table and chairs in my moms lilac bushes.  Grandma brought out a table cloth and they were set! The next day they wanted to eat out there again, we thought nothing of it, how darling are cousins working together to create a "Special" clubhouse!

Later that night my dad and I were out on the patio visiting and my mom was inside making dinner, the evenings had been so beautiful no mosquito's or flies so we all ate dinners out on the patio. From what I recall dinner wasn't quite ready yet, and my mom went back to the clubhouse to look in on the kids - now mind you my dad and I were out in the same back yard.  When she came back she was furious!! I was thinking what could they possibly have done, I didn't think anything of it, maybe they were feeding her dogs?  She came back out of the house with wal-mart sacks and paper towels. I went inside and my dad went out to assist in getting after the kids for whatever they'd done.  I came back out and she said your dad's going to hose it down, whatever you do don't let him do that, Garden club is coming next week for a garden tour. I was confused and went back to check it out.
OMG!
Well earlier I went back to take pictures of the kids and their clubhouse and gave them Popsicles.

Had I only asked for a tour, then they would have taken me to the next room, which was oh yeah! the bathroom! The bathroom they'd been using for the last 2 days, length of time measured simply by the amount of output.

Yep, that is the toilet! Can you see the toilet paper?

In the toilet there was of course a drain hole. 

As for the number 2, they did that next to the toilet.

I handled everything from here out being my son was the eldest. I was going to have each child clean up their own waste just as you would after a dog.

This is how the conversation went.

Me to my child:  Did you say this was okay to do?

Son: No

Me to my niece:  Did my son say that this was okay to do?

Niece: No

Me to my nephew: Did my son say that this was okay to do?

Nephew: No

Hmmm....  I didn't think they had this tight of a bond yet.  As far as they knew they were telling the truth, but I know for a fact that my son didn't say Oh don't do that!  It had to be more like a, do you have to go to the bathroom yet? Well you better go.

Me to all:  Does everyone know how to pick up dog poop?

Them: No

Me: Let me show you.

I show them with imaginary doo doo. And set each of them up with paper towels and I held the bag open.

Me to son: go get yours

Son: none of that is mine

Me to Niece:  go get yours

Niece: neither of those are definitely not mine

Nephew: Yep! Those are both definitely mine.

I gave my nephew a huge hug for telling the truth.  And we all went back to the house to announce that all was cleaned up and Grandpa could commence with the hose down.

After we adults stopped laughing, we calmly told the children that this was inapoopriate :)

We also figured out why there weren't any flies on the patio.