Inked. And The Story Behind The Blog.

 

 

Finding a starting point for this post was very much like debating which came first, the chicken or the egg. You see, the phrase "I Love You More Than Carrots" is roughly twenty-six years old. Now, before you go thinking "Holy cow. How lame is this girl? She went and got her blog name tattooed on her," you're going to want to hear me out. Because it's true, I did ink myself with my blog name but only because my blog name had inked itself on my life years ago. Cheesy, indeed. However, I had to somehow bring the chicken-and-the-egg reference full circle. Here goes...

Back in 1985, at the ripe old age of 2 and during my ritual bedtime routine, I kissed my Daddy goodnight and told him I loved him. Without thinking, he asked "how much do you love me?" And with my infinite wisdom far beyond my years and obviously serious adoration for the vegetable, I promptly responded, "I love you more than carrots." 

 

Needless to say, that silly little phrase stuck and became something quite special between this self-proclaimed Daddy's girl and her daddy. Letters, cards, emails and phone calls were all closed with the saying. Over the years, "I Love You More Than Carrots" became simply, "ILYMTC" and eventually just "LYMTC."

 

In February 2010, at just 4 months pregnant, I received a phone call at work that I wouldn't ever wish on my worst enemy. It was my Mother, telling me in that voice not to worry but that she was sitting in the ER (and had been for a couple of hours) with my Dad.. who appeared to have suffered a stroke at the base of his brain stem. 

Long story short, every saint and angel in Heaven and even God himself had his hand on my Dad that day. Although his left side was marginally affected, he ended up making an almost full recovery. If you asked my Dad what devastated him most about the residual weakness, he would likely tell you that it was the effect that the stroke had on his handwriting. 

 

I've never met a man with more beautiful penmanship than my father. It was something he prided himself on and out of 1,000 letters, those who knew him could pick out his writing from miles away. He worked his ass off, spending hours doodling on newspapers, hospital menus, napkins.. anything he could get his hands.. hoping to strengthen his left hand. Truth be told? It made me physically sick to see his handwriting look like that of a 4th grader and what made it even worse was seeing how much it upset him. 

 

Eventually, through hours of practice and relentless physical therapy, my Dad's strength in that left side is almost fully recovered. His handwriting, once again, is unmistakably his own. Beautiful and unique. 

 

It was shortly after my Dad's stroke that I knew exactly the tattoo I would get. The tattoo that I had been wanting for years. Ten years, to be exact. 

 

Over the years I vacillated between a few designs: a pheonix on my ankle, the requisite Chinese lettering denoting "faith" "blessings" or "love," on my hip that was ever-so-popular during my high school years, and at one point, I may have even wanted a fairy.. a la Brit-Brit. Thankfully, the nagging feeling of, "something just isn't right, it doesn't mean enough" was enough to sway me from taking the leap and getting inked.

 

Until now. 

I'm now the proud, bad ass owner of my first-ever ink. Written in my Dad's handwriting. Something that means more than the world to me and something I'll be able to look at well, forever and ever.. 

 

And thanks to my addictive personality, I have a feeling this won't be the last. And Dan (the tattoo artist), I would just like to point out that you were right. It did feel just like you were writing with a pencil. A pencil filled with about 7,000 needles.

Later in the week, I'll have a pretty neat McLinky post up and running where I'll write a bit more about my tattoo, the process and how I made my Dad and brother come with me. And I'll even talk about how, at first, The Husband wasn't a major fan but after several hours, totally warmed up to My New Ink and wanted to know if I would seriously ever considering inking his name on my body.  

 

The McLinky will be for all you Loyals out there to link up and tell me about your ink. Thanks to this Mama for the idea as it's been quite the Twitter joke that I'm now a part of the super secret and elite #CMTC or Cool Mom Tattoo Club.

Happy Tuesday, Loyals! 
Hope you all had a wonderfully relaxing holiday weekend! 
Back to the grind...