If you’re new here or just need a refresher, I barf so much, so often and so violently when I am pregnant that the capillaries in my face rupture. POP! Whee!

I just got done being pregnant for the second time about 6 months ago and spent much of my pregnancy learning to love my creepy looking face. I do love my face…especially because it’s currently a very happy face that gets to love on the world’s cutest baby and her big sister too all the live long day.

But here’s the thing.

It’s my face.

The one thing that pretty much every human that ever meets me is going to see.

Groupon had a super deal to a laser skincare center for photo facials. Cody let me get 4 treatments. I figured if they work they work, if they don’t, at least I didn’t spend thousands of dollars to be disappointed.

I went for my second face lasering yesterday.

She turned me up to FULL POWER.

Ow.

The pain is between dental work (WORST PAIN EVER) and getting a tattoo (a sort of pleasurable pain. And yes, I have four tattoos, unclench.)

Here’s another little fun fact about my face.

The right side is hyper vascular. Meaning I have a whole lot more petichiae on the right side than the left. (Bonus fun fact: Apparently *most* people who are hyper-vascular are hyper-vascular on their left side. Pardon my while I bow with my medical anomalies.)

Here’s the right side of my face at 16 weeks pregnant. Notice the lips of death from dehydration.

Now here’s the right side of my face 5 months postpartum before any laser treatments. (The petichiae did get slightly better on its own without all the barfing and extra blood coercing through my veins.)

And the left side…which is actually very lovely (comparatively.)

Now here I am today after my face lasering of DOOM yesterday. I really am hoping that this is just a complete and total flare up before these little critters pack their little blood bags and leave town. One last revolt if you will…

And with makeup, because sometimes it’s interesting just to see the difference.

(See those curls? THAT’S where Addie got them from. She’ll tell you she got them from Costco but it’s all a lie.)

I take INSANELY good care of my skin. I was practically born applying sunscreen, however thanks to genetics my undereye area will always be ready for a cross country trip with the bags they keep fully packed.

I have two photo facials left. Depending on how this last round heals I’m not so sure what will happen. Consolation came when all the girls at the laser center said my face was the worse they had ever seen (which yay! and boo.) My ultimate goal out of all of this is to be able to be able to go out sans makeup without looking like I just ran a marathon (which is never going to happen) or like I have some strange rash (which I do.)

If it works? It works.

If not? I’ll look into medals for “worst case of petichiae ever.”

Or maybe trophies. I’ve still never won one of those.

Would you be more likely to fix something if it were on your face compared to maybe a leg or an armpit?

(You look lovely today by the way. Really.)

Want to know something really disgusting?

I really am this happy.

And it’s pretty much all this baby’s fault. (Who is also really is this happy.)

She is my whole soul.

“Your belly is still squashy.” *poke poke poke*

“That’s because it carried two babies. The more babies it carries the more babies I have to snuggle, the softer my belly needs to be. Would you want to snuggle with a hard mom?”

“Nope. So that’s why your chest is squashy and your bum is squashy and your legs are squashy?”

“Yep. All the better to snuggle you with.”

“So you’ll never get unsquashy?”

“Not until I’m out of babies to snuggle.”

“Vivi’s squashy because she’s a baby and we have to snuggle her right?”

“Right.”

“Someday will I be super comfy like you?”

“Yep. It’s one of the best parts of having babies. Becoming their favorite comfy place.”

I read a biography a long time ago about a mother and her daughter said something like “I’m so glad my mom was always comfortable. She always felt like a mom. She never tried to fit into worldly stereotypes. She was just happy being our mom.”

As Addie was poking my soft parts it would have been so easy to use negative self talk, the word fat or begin talking about how I needed to work out. Addie may have ignored me completely or she may have listened to every word I said and I would have planted a seed about what she is supposed to look like as a girl or woman.

I am happy and I am healthy.

On my squashy parts is where both of my girls like to lay their heads the most.

Why would I want to say something negative about them?

I haven’t seen the sun for five days.

It is currently rainy and cold, my dishwasher is broken and my house is in total upheaval from my recent return from Canada.

My baby is sick, the bigger one is getting sick and I have a canker the size of Siberia.

I am very busy with all the responsibilities I have taken on in writing, photography and promotion.

Looking around it would be very easy to become overwhelmed and crash.

Hard.

But there’s this little flutter inside of me that hasn’t let me crash. That won’t let me crash.

To-Do lists are overwhelming. But they can be pecked away at slowly and methodically.

Some things are more important than to-do lists.

Baby snuggles, games of Candyland, family dinners.

I am currently walking the highest, thinnest tightrope of responsibility I have ever walked.

But I have never felt more balanced.

(Then again, check back in 24 hours. I may very well be huddled up and crying in a corner, let’s be honest.)

How have you been handling the weather change?