Folks, we have reached critical mass in my household. The kiddo has her third loose tooth, but as much as all that wiggling makes her Daddy gag, she's refusing to bite the bullet and let me yank it. In my desperation, I have turned to YouTube, treasure trove of all ideas weird and weirder. And I may have found the craziest tooth-pulling trick yet.

You think tying the tooth to a doorknob and slamming it shut is kooky? Try tying the offending incisor to a Nerf gun ... and shooting it across the room!

On a recent weekend morning, I was lazing in bed at the deliciously slutty hour of 8:15 a.m. (bliss), listening to my kids getting their clothes on. My 6-year-old was patiently helping the 3-year-old ("Okay, now put your head through the hole ... no, the hole at the top of the shirt, Dylan. And now you stick your arms in the sleeves, and look, you're all dressed!" "FANK you, Riley!") and it was one of those magical parenting moments I wanted to sear into my brain-folds with a branding iron: remember this, remember this, remember this. Their sweet, high-pitched voices, the affection so clearly audible in their tones, the fact that for once they weren't screaming at each other over a stolen Lego.

Oh, we have come so far from the days and weeks after I brought Dylan home from the hospital. Back then, I looked at the atom bomb that had gone off in our previously happy little household and thought, This is the worst thing I could have possibly done to Riley.

By now, the whole word knows that Michelle Duggar -- mama to 19 kids -- has had a miscarriage of what would have been baby 20. And now you have a choice, folks. You can decide whether you're going to join the group of people bashing the Duggar family, or you're going to care about those 19 kids. Because the reactions to this devastating new have certainly shined a light on a rarely talked about victim in pregnancy loss.

Fact is, I don't agree with the Duggar family's quiverfull plans for procreation -- the thing that earned them a show on TLC. I hear 20 kids, and I grab my stomach. But I can't read Michelle Duggar's comments about the night before she realized she'd miscarried -- when she was hanging out with her other children -- or the planned funeral services and not feel bad for those other kiddos in her household.

Dear Justin Bieber,

Word has it you are back in New York after gallivanting with girlfriend Selena Gomez. How do I know this? Because I saw it on Twitter, the same place where a hashtag is devoted to Margaret Donaldson, a little girl who lost her brother in a tragic flood. #LiftMargaret doesn't have your name on it, Justin, but it's all about you.

Because 10-year-old Margaret wrote a wish list last month that ended up on her mom's blog, An Inch of Gray. She asked for her brother Jack, the 12-year-old who died when floodwaters swept him away from his friends as they played in the rain earlier this fall. But the Internet can't give her Jack back. What they can give her ... with your help ... is you.

If you are a girl with a younger brother, chances are that headline made you nod your head and say something along the lines of, "Uh huh, he WOULD do that, wouldn't he?" There's a solidarity among big sisters of bratty little boys, a kinship that lasts over the years. We all have stories of that time he gave Barbie a swirlie or used your first bra as a slingshot.

Bratty little brothers are, by definition, difficult and troublesome. But as this video-bombing little man is about to show, sometimes they are there to save you from something you are doing drastically wrong. Roll the videotape!

Here's something I'll never understand. Nine times out of 10, if I let slip that my daughter is an only child, the person I'm chatting with informs me it's time to have another baby. But never has anyone offered me some cash to help raise my kid.

Funny, isn't it? People are so darn opinionated about only children that they'll waltz right into my womb. They love nothing more than to tell us what we're doing wrong, and why we need to fix it. But they don't spend a lot of time finding out whether we're in any place to take their suggestions.

OK, parents, it's time to clear something up. See, I have just one kid, and so my experiences with real honest to goodness sibling rivalry are but a dim memory from my own childhood. But I hear it's the worst. Worse even than the infernal toddler whine, and I KNOW whining.

So parents, what's the deal? Every time I turn around, your little darlings are walking by me sporting a t-shirt with some trash talk about their brother or sister written across their chest. Literally ... written across the chest. And we all point and laugh and have a jolly good time. Until Junior smacks Sally across the ear, and you start yelling "Be nice to your sister," and look to the rest of us for sympathy. You sooooo get where I'm going with this, don't you? These sibling rivalry t-shirts can be funny ... but you might want to think about who we're laughing at. Just take a gander:

As a mother of an only child, there is one thing that I miss completely. Sibling rivalry. And when I say miss it, I mean I don't have to hear "Moooooom, she's touching me!" from the backseat. But I also don't get the entertainment value.

Take the two brothers at a Texas Rangers game who have gone viral this week thanks to one's sign offering his piggy bank up in exchange for whatever ballplayer could hit a line drive ... directly into his brother's noggin. Ouch! Literally! Figuratively! Just ouch!!