VA Ink

VA Ink

Tattoos are pretty hard core.  I always thought they were for sailors, guys who have weird mom issues, tramps who need postage and drunk folks looking to “forever remember that girl he once dated for a couple months several years ago.”  Then my wife, her sisters and my sisters all got tattoos.  Now, no disrespect to all the wonderful women in my family, but the last word I would use to describe them is hard core.  Sure Kath and Abbey participated in a Wyoming Polar Bear club and Jules did ice climb throughout college and punched my 8^th grade bully in the face, but hard core is a stretch.  (That actually qualifies them all as tougher than me)  So, for a few years now, I’ve been thinking if regular folks like them can get tattoos, maybe I could take the plunge too.

Earlier this year, Jenn mentioned that she wouldn’t mind getting another tattoo.  In early October, Steph said she’d found someone to get us inked up in Charlottesville, so with three paychecks coming in November, I started looking for designs/ideas.  My initial thoughts:

Idea #1:  A full back tattoo of a dragon.  Maybe the one from Shrek for Jonah.  Maybe the one from Sleeping Beauty for Brynn.

Idea #2: A heart just above my hip.  It would have a sword going through one side and a flower going around the other, with the word "Jenn-spice" in the middle.  That idea didn’t really make it very far.

Idea #3:  It’s going to get weird.  Two dragons.  That idea made it a little further than I’m proud of.

In the end, Jenn and I decided on the same root of our tattoos’ meaning: our kids.  For me, I’ve always loved the stars, so I decided to get the zodiac symbols of each of my kids tattooed on my arms.  On the left, I have Gemini for Brynn and on my right, Pisces for Jonah.  I found a design online that I liked, but only for one symbol.  The folks at this place are real artists.  Within five minutes he had completely matched the design in both symbols, added his own style, while staying true to the concept and I was ready to go.  I was a little nervous about such a permanent change, but it came out really well and exactly how I had hoped.  In the end I was happy to honor my two kids who I love so much.

Jenn’s tattoo was a little more complicated, so they were going to take longer to draw up and iterate on a final design.  A few weeks later, Jenn went in and the tattoo artists did another amazing job.  Jenn’s idea was of the two kids birth flowers, intertwined on the inside of her wrist.  Super sensitive area, but she swears it didn’t hurt.  I wasn’t there and I’m positive Steph wouldn’t tell us even if Jenn did cry for 75 percent of the time.  Maybe Jenn is more hard core than I realize…. (Editor’s note:  I am not hard core.  It hurt like a son of a bitch, but I didn’t cry, nor did I need to have the tattoo artist stop, which I am oddly proud of.) 

In the end, we both walked away with two enduring symbols of our love for our children.  Brynn is already planning on getting her tattoos.  Her idea: dolphin on one arm, tiger on the other.  We’ll see how that idea comes along….