"Mom I have to poop. Bad." 

The spike of terror that runs through me is one known well by caregivers worldwide.

We're on a trail at a National Park overlook. Not a terrible place to be, on many accounts, not least of which is that most have bathrooms. A very sweet looking couple either barely finishing their teens or perhaps 35 (I can no longer tell) pass us and I hear her giggle. This is a fantastic opportunity to pull myself out of the moment and see it for what it is; a kid needing to go to the bathroom. No big deal. Nothing to be frustrated about.  Objectively, ten minutes from being solved. Also slightly cute - a 5 year old clutching his drawers interrupting a mom teaching her two young boys about nature. My fantasy gives her the gift of wanting to be me in the future.

The rest of this tale is for her.

We’re five minutes from the car where we’ve been toting a self-contained toilet ever since the beginning of the pandemic.  Also, potentially convenient in a way I never would have appreciated before.

"OK I’ll set up the toilet right here next to the car,” as I’m pulling the thing out and unhooking the lid. I waved away at least three people looking for a parking spot. Most of the rest of America, it seems, has decided that outdoors at a National Park is the place to be right this very minute. As I have made the exact same decision, it is illogical for me to be as annoyed by this as I very much am.

"But mom!” he says. “I’ll be embarrassed,” his voice drops to a whisper, “They’ll see my bellybutton." This is absolutely true. And likely a lot more, son. In the interest of getting this situation resolved I mention neither of those things.  

I look at him carefully, searching for a crack in the armor of his very set face. Nada. I have enough experience to know there will be no budging. To be fair, I wouldn’t want to poop in the middle of what amounts to a supermarket-on-Sunday parking lot either.

So nevermind about this viewpoint. I shuffle both boys, their shoes, the backpack, the water, the trekking poles, and all of the other things their Junior Ranger books indicate we need even for the shortest of desert walks, into the car. I promise to find a spot beside the road that is at least one degree less popular than this parking lot. Again, it being a pandemic in the middle of October in southern Utah, and national parks are deliberately designed to be seen by a car, this is harder than it may seem.  

Three miles later. We’re pulled over, the toilet is unpacked, bellybuttons are hidden from passing traffic by one entire Subaru and one layer of T-shirt fabric. "We found a spot, honey, go ahead and unbuckle.”

"No."

Good gravy. “What do you mean no?”

"I don’t want to go."

“Don’t want to or don’t need to?”

“I just don’t.”  

I'll leave the escalation to your imagination. But in the end I’m carrying him to the toilet pulling his shorts down and making him stay there for five minutes. There was wailing. Some cars slowed down. The toilet fell over. So did my belief that I was anything close to a competent parent.

He didn’t go, either then or for another five hours which is a stubbornness that will serve him later in life. It will not serve his current gut health, but so be it. We didn’t finish the hike.

So, my dear passerby, did you also pass us while I was plonking him on a roadside toilet? During the yelling part, because that was the best? It certainly was not as cute. But the only piece of wisdom I feel confident enough to share is that the view ended up being lovely from the next waypoint. This was thanks primarily to the sugar content of Clif Bars and secondarily to the massive tectonic and geologic forces that shaped the rock seen from said viewpoint for billions of years.  

This is one of many instances of coming apart. I unraveled enough to shove my boy on a toilet. But I also came undone enough to be on this trip at a National Park on a Wednesday (where I shoved by boy on a toilet). Neither of those things would have happened in any of the years leading up to this one.

So maybe that’s the better thing to tell the giggler. Some shit is a false alarm. Some shit you upend your life to get out of. Life is better when you know the difference.

And thank you for smiling at this soon-to-be struggling mom.

This story based on an experience at Bryce Canyon National Park.