Potty language starts off simply enough. I mean, after the “hiding behind the couch to take a dump” phase of early potty training.

Then there’s a brief, embarrassed to even mention it, phase. Embarrassment exacerbated by parents who insist on discussing your bowel function in public. “Honey! Do you have to poop!? You haven’t pooped yet today. Do you need some prunes?”

Then, with great relief, come the sassy teen years, when being slightly gross becomes fun again.

Which lasts until we grow up, or attempt to, as we enter the adult workforce and slip back into those old manners, still all shiny from lack of use.

This should carry us on through our adult lives. And it probably does, unless we have kids. Our language reverts for our kids, and old habits creep back into our brains until, one day, we excuse ourselves from a meeting by announcing to a group of our (childless or beyond child-rearing) peers that we have to potty.

Just part of the great circle of existence, and one of the many small indignities of parenthood. I’m sure one day I’ll be silently peeing in my diaper again, as my youngest does now. If you’ll excuse me, I have to ask my four year old if she has to poop.

I’ll just yell it across the park.