Baby poop is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter what social circles you run in, or how many academic degrees follow your name: The urge to splurge (often graphic) details about your child's diaper contents can be irresistible, especially when you're around other moms.

Maybe it's because we've been humbled by pregnancy, childbirth, and/or adoption procedures, but by the time we're up to our elbows in the brown stuff, we've developed skewed perspectives about what makes for good conversation. Case in point: I recently met up with a well-read and intellectual friend at a local caf[E233], where we discussed our 2-year-old sons' constipation problems in such loud, loving detail that the people next to us found another table to enjoy their morning brew. Oops.

Here's more fuel for those mom-only chats, from what's come over us to how to deal with the dirtiest diapers.

How Poop Got to Be so Fascinating

It's hard not to at least notice and compare the contents of our baby's diapers from one day to the next -- considering how many of them we change. How interested can you get? Bethany Gwin of Vestavia Hills, Alabama, says she became "poop-obsessed" when daughter Reese, 4, was a baby, and she thinks she knows why. "Reese was dependent on me for how much she ate, how often she ate, how often she was held. Poop was just an extension of that. If a book said she should go every day or every few days and she didn't, as her mother, it was my job to fix it."

Another reason: You love everything about your child, from the first smile she bestows upon you to the stinky loads she drops in her diaper. Plus, as one mom I know says, "It's visible proof our children are actually doing something!"

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