Yesterday we took Jackson to Jack's job site to look at a big grader that had sunk up to its cab in mud. I put Jackson up in the driver's seat (wheee! I'm the boss's wife and I'm going to put my two-and-three-quarters-year-old inside your huge piece of heavy equipment! It's okay, he hasn't had any nighttime cold medicine) while two guys with shovels tried to dig the monster out. After I got Jackson down, he started doing his little crouching dance, which can mean only one thing.

Me: Do you have to pee?
Jackson (quietly): Mom, I have to poop.
Me (calculating that the nearest job site port-a-potty is a quarter of a mile away, and in god knows what condition): Hey! Here's your first chance to poop in a bush!

He seemed pretty game as I lead him toward an out-of-the-way spot. When I helped him get his pants down and explained how he had to crouch a little so he wouldn't hit his boots, he started getting a little panicked, but the urge to purge won out. Then, there we were, in a world without wipes or toilet paper. Just like a Cormac McCarthy novel! I quickly found a fresh, green, shiny, young, nonpoisonous plant with leaves about the size of bananas that looked exactly like something my parents used to have in their living room, and I deeply humiliated it by tearing off all eight shiny leaves and wiping them up my son's butt crack. I can't say they were the most fragrant and absorbent things I've ever used on a butt crack, but they were clean and I think I mentioned nonpoisonous.

Pretty soon I'm going to be able to rename this blog What We Talk About When We Talk About Poop.