Siblings and Sewer Pipes

A rather unusual combination unless you know my children.

For some reason the older boys have been unusually obsessed with sewer pipes for the last month or so. They somehow manage to work the subject into most every conversation.

At dinner, Stephen talks about food going down his sewer pipe.

They periodically ask about what happened to the pair of underwear Andrew flushed down the toilet last fall and wonder whether we can get it back.

I often find them both with their heads inside the rim of the toilet watching the water swirl down.

We store our playdough and cutting supplies in an old baby wipe container and last week Andrew was fashioning, well, I'll just say #2, and dropping it into the potty (the pop-up hole in the top); I can guarantee that this never occurred to my sister or I to do.

They connected a bunch of pool noodles together to make their water pipes then sent pencils sliding through.

Since they forgot to ask Uncle Wes about the flow of water and waste through the sewage pipes to the water treatment plant, I had to sit down and read about it in Underground, a wonderful (though advanced) book by David Macauly. The boys were thrilled. Now we can sing a song about sewage:

Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Oh, they carry the waste away.

Well, the house pipe's connected to the lateral,
The lateral's connected to the submain,
The submain's connected to the main pipe,
Then it goes to the water treatment plant.

Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Them pipes, them pipes, them sewer pipes,
Oh, they carry the waste away.