Whenever my ex gets angry at me, he threatens to dunk my toothbrush in the toilet. As cruel and disgusting as that sounds to most normal people, it is especially horrifying to me. I am a giant germophobe. I am neurotic about hygene and obsessive over cleanliness.

Tonight, while straightening my hair in the guest bath, I heard Gavin walk by the door and say, “No drink water. Uh-oh.” Then I heard him fiddling with the handle of the toilet in the master bath. I poked my head out of the door, mid-straightening, and asked my ex to check up on our little monkey. Like every mother, I have a sixth sense when it comes to my child. I knew something bad was going down.

As soon as my ex yelled, “Gavin - no!” my fears were confirmed. Only I didn’t know just how bad it was. My ex appeared at the door to the guest bath, obviously trying to conceal laughter and not doing a very good job.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

“Do you want to know what your son was doing?”

I searched my ex’s face. I could tell I was not going to like what he had to say.

“Yes, tell me.”

“He was dunking your toothbrush in the toilet -”

I shrieked in horror.

“- and putting in his mouth afterward.”

Parenting is the hardest job in the entire world.

Wise words, indeed.

There is currently an image floating around the Internet which features that very slogan underneath a family photo of the rabbit - err, Duggar - family. It looks like one of those cheesy motivational posters, the ones telling you to “Succeed” or “Dream.” Except this one implores you not to pop kids out of your vajayjay like it’s your job. The Duggar poster is way more poignant than most of the serious ones, if you ask me.

Mama Duggar recently took her husband and their brood of 17 children on the Today Show to announce that - shockingly! - she was pregnant again. As you can imagine, this royally pissed me off. Why was her pregnancy a news story? Was she a celebrity? A Nobel Prize winner? A monarch? No, it turns out, she is none of those things. Her claim to fame is simply an atrocious hairdo and an utter lack of self control. (Between you and me, I think that hairdo is a big giant wink at the American public. The wink says, “I know this looks like crap. But it adds to my crazy persona and keeps my 15 minutes of fame alive. That’s also why I keep giving birth. Gotta keep it fresh.”)

In all seriousness, though, I hate this woman. I hate her husband, whose name is Jim-Bob. I can’t even get started on how heinous his name is, because if I do, this post will surely never end. Mama Duggar acts like it’s a beautiful thing to have so many kids. I think it ought to be a crime. “We receive no government assistance,” she says. Okay, fine. So you don’t receive actual taxpayer checks. But your 17, soon-to-be-18, children consume resources. They eat food, they breathe air, they will one day drive cars. This earth is so badly overpopulated and is becoming so depleted of resources, what makes you think you should be entitled to as much as you like?

Furthermore, tomorrow is Mother’s Day and I have been thinking a lot about what life must be like for her kids. Do they even know their mother, the way kids should? Supposedly there is a chart in the Duggar house where kids who feel that they need one-on-one time with a parent can sign up. If kids have to use a sign up sheet just to have a little bit of time with Mom or Dad, there’s a major problem.

I don’t think people should be allowed to have as many kids as they want just because they physically can. First of all, there is a correlation between level of education and number of children - the less educated you are, the more likely you are to have more children. That’s going to trend our country in a wonderful direction. We’re already falling way behind the rest of the world, why not dilute our collective gene pool a little more. Second, as I mentioned above, all these extra people are exacerbating the problem of overpopulation. If you want to have more than two kids, fine. But you ought to be taxed for those additional children (not receive tax breaks!) in order to help offset the environmental damage they are causing.  

It’s been a crazy couple of days here. Gavin is sick again and hasn’t been sleeping. And when Gavin isn’t sleeping, no one is. So, due to mental and physical exhaustion, I’m going to keep this one short. Very short.

During Sick Day #1, Gavin got into the markers when I wasn’t looking and decided to color a picture. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on paper. Here is a view of my kitchen floor:

Leaving no canvas untouched, here is a picture of the artist’s feet: