It is a beautiful autumn day in my part of Wisconsin! The sun is out, the leaves are turning to the loveliest colors, the air is crisp and cool. Aaaaah.

Nick and I headed over to school early today so we could spend a good half hour on the nature walk in the woods next to the school before he headed inside to prison. I mean, school. We were 2 minutes and 30 yards in playing hide-and-seek when he suddenly ran back to me and spoke with urgency. “MOMMY! I have to poop! NOW!!”

Why is so much of my life about poop?

“Is it an emergency?” I asked.

“Yes!” answered Nick as his feet started the telltale pitter-patter of an I-gotta-poop happy dance.

“Can you wait five minutes while we get back to the car and drive home?”

“NO.”

So he dropped trou’ in the woods. This is not an issue for us, being Masters of the wilderness poop. He squatted, held onto my leg, and quickly unloaded his bowels. I stared at his poop in shock, as I always do. How does a 3-foot-tall, 41-pound squirt issue man-turds?

It looked like a clean one, so I felt cheerful because I had nothing to clean him with. Until we started to pull up his pants. That’s when I realized he had also peed while pooping, shooting every drop into the waist hole of his pants and underwear, which were around his ankles as he squatted. I had forgotten about the whole tiny-penis-pointing-straight-up thing.

So, instead of enjoying a half hour in the woods, we climbed back in the car and raced home for a quick bath and clothing change, We barely made it back to school on time in a numb frenzy, without collecting a single autumn leaf or chasing a single squirrel or wood fairy.

And that about sums up my life these days, whether it’s the figurative or the actual walk in the woods you’re talking about.