I sometimes struggle with inadequacy as a stay-at-home-mom, as if I'm somehow not doing enough. Never enough.

I watch my working mom friends cook, clean, do homework and all the other things I do in a day, all while balancing a career precariously on a gorgeous pair of stilettos. On top of that, they often have the financial means to do things we only dream of, like take vacations, save a reasonable amount for retirement, and not want to puke from the stress of Christmas shopping on a tight budget. I don't know how you do it, ladies, but hats off to you. You could see how, if we were comparing penises, I might feel a wee bit embarrassed by mine. From here, it looks like yours is bigger and can do more things.

But this morning, as I read a brand new blog a friend of mine started called Sprung Onto the Spectrum, I was taken back to a time when what I do today sounded not only overwhelming, but next to impossible. Her most recent post talks about how she felt when her son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS a few months ago, and how far she's come since that initial feeling of complete devastation. Reading that post gave me a quick kick in the ass. It's exactly what I needed to get out of Eeyore mode.

(You know, Eeyore mode? Where a little back raincloud follows you around as you eat thistles and talk in an emo voice about how bad things are? If you need a demonstration, come by right after one of the vehicles breaks down and we need to figure out how to pay for it. I put on a good show.)

The truth is, I'm my biggest enemy. I undervalue myself far more than I should by insisting I could always be doing more: more one-on-one parenting, more educating, more housework, more baking and cooking, more family outings, more budgeting, more writing contracts, and more coffee drinking so I can maybe jump high enough to reach the impossibly high bar I've set for myself. Then, hopefully, I'll hit my head on said bar and pass out so I can stop acting like such a douche.

The Maven can act surprisingly douchey. I suppose it helps balance out my awesome.

I have two kids with hearing loss. That involves a heck of a lot more than just slapping some hearing aids on and sending them off to school. Over the years, we've had a team of support that involves the likes of teachers, in-class aides, ENTs, audiologists, audioprostheticists (try saying that three times fast), psychologists, speech therapists and integration specialists. I end up running around the national capital region more than a call girl on government pay day.

I have one child who not only has hearing loss, but anxiety. He has massive panic attacks that manifest as meltdowns. He has additional appointments to learn the skills to deal with it, and we spend a lot of time calming him down and reassuring him that he's safe. Then, we spend more time helping the other kids understand and deal with his outbursts. It's a jolly good time.

Sometimes, I forget that we have all these extra appointments and situations and that so much of the time I think I'm supposed to have is eaten up by them. I blame human adaptability. Life since these diagnoses has become our new normal; so much so that I forget how much I do in a day to keep this family going. Like my friend, I morphed from the devastated, heartbroken, sick with worry parent into a mom who accepts and loves her kids for who they are (most of the time).

Unfortunately, I seem to have gone the extra mile and am now beating myself up for not doing more with my life. See? I'm so douchey that if they named a Disney Princess after me, they would call her Doucherella.

And I'm not the only one with this self-destructive problem. This seems to be pervasive in the mothering community as a whole. It's a rare woman who is completely confident that what she does is more than enough. The rest of us seem to wade through this mess of inadequacy and self-doubt.  Then we wonder why we eat our feelings.

Oh, wait. That's just me.

I think taking personal inventory of our lives every so often can be healthy. When we take the time to look at where we are, how far we've come, and all we've done to accomplish these things, it's rejuvenating. This morning, I was reminded that I do my fair share in this society of ours. I don't need to do more, and in fact I probably could stand to do a little less. This is true of a lot of women I know, whether they work at home or in an office, whether they have one child or five, special needs kids or not. Single, married, broke or comfortable. We all need to give ourselves a pat on the back.

In short, I think we should all pull the balled up socks out of our crotches and stop comparing.

Today, just repeat this motto: My proverbial penis is bountiful, my proverbial penis is bountiful, my proverbial penis is bountiful.

You're welcome.