Today contributor Jennifer Galle is a stay-at-home wife and mom to two little girls. She's also an NRA Basic Pistol instructor and the National Membership Director for the A Girl and a Gun Woman's Shooting League. In a recent article titled "I Am a Mom With a Gun," she writes,

"... while I’m like many other moms across America, there is one little twist in my daily routine that may set me apart. When I go to the grocery store, I grab my car keys, my purse and I put on my holster. Yes, I am a mom with a gun. So was my mom. And someday, my daughters may be too."

I am too. A mom with a gun, that is. I definitely don't take it to the grocery store -- in fact, it rarely leaves our safe -- but I own one and I know how to use it. My husband is a hunter and a gun enthusiast. And our sons will grow up learning how to safely handle and shoot firearms.

There are times when I feel an overwhelming sense of despair over the amount of housekeeping it takes just to achieve a "baaaarely acceptable, as long as no one unexpectedly drops by for a visit" level of cleanliness. The problem isn't just that I hate cleaning and vacuuming and picking up and doing dishes and putting away laundry (although sweet jesus, I truly do), it's that there is absolutely ZERO job satisfaction with these tasks because they're never ever ever ever ever ever finished. As Taylor Swift would say: like, ever.

As if it's not bad enough to be mired in a Sisyphean loop of interminable homekeeping activities, my kids make it a thousand times worse by, well, by EXISTING, frankly, but also by glomming onto certain cluttery garbage-y items and refusing to part ways with them. So not only is my house forever littered with the basic detritus of crumbs, pieces of paper, articles of clothing, and miscellaneous dropped objects, there are all these ... THINGS, too.

I recently stumbled across one of those articles that's ostensibly aimed at offering improvements on the parenting front while simultaneously kicking you in the shins. (You know the type, right? "Ten Hidden Toxins That Can Create Extra Limb Growth: Is Your Baby Eating These Tentacle-Triggering Foods?") I read the title -- "Biggest New Mom Mistakes Ever" -- and rolled my eyes. Just what we all need, more evidence that we're doing it wrong and our octo-children will be forever damaged as a result. Are you guilty? the article sneered. Eat a bag of dicks, anonymous web advice, I sneered back ... and then I scanned the list.

Ha. Ha. HA. HA HA HA HA HAAAA. You guys, I've made -- and in some cases, am still making -- pretty much every single one of these "new mom mistakes."

In fact, let's just go through each terrible, avoid-at-all-costs mistake, one by one:

Every morning, I go through the following makeup routine: I wash and moisturize my face. I apply foundation. I dab a special primer under my eyes before applying a layer of undereye concealer. I use an angled brush to fill in my eyebrows. I use another, thinner brush to line the tops of my eyelids. I sweep a neutral-toned powder below my brow line. I use a kabuki brush to add a little bronzer to my cheekbones. I curl my eyelashes and put on a layer of mascara. I dust my entire face with setting powder, then add blush. Finally, I color my mouth with a creamy lip stain.

This is what I do to make myself presentable for the thrilling activity of taking my first-grader to his bus stop.

The crazy thing is, after all those products are on my face ... I don't really look like I have makeup on. I just look slightly more awake and less flu-stricken than I did when I first woke up. At nearly 40 years old, this is the minimum routine I need to feel even halfway decent about myself.

Is anything more annoying than trying to get your kid to smile on cue when you've got the camera aimed in their direction and you're trying to capture a Precious Moment for the Ages? No, this isn't one of those rhetorical questions meant to serve as a useful segue into the blog topic at hand; I really and truly want to know, IS ANYTHING MORE ANNOYING?

Okay, fine. Probably there are lots and lots of things more annoying than a kid who goes all Jim Carrey with the facial expressions when you just want one single decent image for the love of god, but this particular child behavior quirk is pretty high on my list. Let's say it's right above "Cats who run up like they want to be petted, then shy away at the last minute GODDAMN YOU GET BACK HERE AND SUFFER MY REPULSIVE HUMAN TOUCH" and right below "Exercise pants that give you a humiliating turbo-wedgie at the gym right when that groovy Flo Rida song comes on."

Years before my husband and I had kids, we had a dog. A wonderful sweet yellow Lab that we brought home on August 3, 2002. Her name was Ashley, but quickly became known -- simply and affectionately -- as Dog. Dog joined us for many adventures before the kids came along, and although she was getting on in years when our boys became ambulatory, tail-pulling toddlers, she was always gentle and patient with them.

We tearfully said goodbye to Dog in June of 2011, and I figured that while we'd never truly get over the heartbreak of losing her, it wouldn't be long before we welcomed another canine member of the household. But it's been almost two years, and every time I think about getting another dog, I get hung up on one thing.

Everything about the small, warm bundle in my arms felt deeply familiar to me in a muscle-memory sort of way -- from how I'd instinctively reached to support his neck to the head-to-the-left position I automatically settled into. This perfect little baby boy our friends had welcomed into the world just three days beforehand was a beauty, and the tiny sleepy noises he made were as nostalgic and appealing as the milky-sweet scent of his head.

If ever there was going to be a time when biology might override my decision to be done having children, it seemed like this was it. Sitting in a chair, cradling a newborn, remembering the wild magic of those early days with our boys.

I smiled tenderly down at him, watched his rosebud mouth open into the world's tiniest yawn, and thought to myself, Oh, thank fucking GOD I get to hand you back in a few minutes.

It only took getting to the the second paragraph of this New York Magazine piece titled "The Feminist Housewife" for my eyes to roll: "Women (...) are conditioned to be more patient with children, to be better multitaskers, to be more tolerant of the quotidian grind of playdates and temper tantrums."

The article focuses on the so-called "retro wife" -- the contented women who choose to leave their careers for a peaceful, satisfying life raising kids:

... what was once feminist blasphemy is now conventional wisdom: Generally speaking, mothers instinctively want to devote themselves to home more than fathers do. (...) The harried, stressed, multiarmed Kali goddess, with a laptop in one hand and homemade organic baby food in the ­other, has been replaced with a domestic Madonna, content with her choices and placid in her sphere.

Domestic Madonna? PLACID IN HER SPHERE? So, am I antifeminist if I say I can't identify with that sentiment at all?