(not just a) MommyBlog (dot com)

Back in the days of my wild youth… I got a tattoo.   I was 22, sitting in the lawn of my sister’s college campus, playing bongo drums and sipping an early afternoon beer, and it just sounded like  a good idea at the time.   I was working full time as an actress, and I was going through a little bit of an edgy phase.   So my sis and I hopped into the car and drove over to the local ink doctor, and I had a permanent picture injected into  the smooth, sensitive skin on my lower back.

Fast forward  7  years, and I am blissfully planning my wedding the man of my dreams and starting to realize that I just don’t like that tattoo anymore.   It’s not that a tattoo  in and of itself is bad, but the one I got was more than a little edgy… it was about 3 inches by 3 inches, black and the picture of a dragon skeleton with Chinese characters inside the belly.   Ok – it was ugly.

So right after the honeymoon, I found a local laser doc who removes tattoos for a huge fee, and I started what should have been a series of 6 to 8 sessions.

I had session number 8 right before I got pregnant.   And the tattoo was less than half gone.

Fast forward again to post-pregnancy, post c-section, smack in the middle of having fun going to play groups, and Kenny and I went to our  first toddler pool party.   To be frank, I had completely forgotten that I even had a half-dismantled tattoo, and it was the first time I ventured into a bikini, post-delivery.   Feeling pretty decent about my body (even the little flap of skin above my belly button that waves in the wind when I run), I was happily splashing in the water with Kenny, when I hear a little two-year-old voice behind   me saying, “Kenny’s mommy has a boo boo.”

To make a long story short, I ended up forcing 10 mothers to explain to their innocent little ones that Mrs. Cook obviously made some decisions in her life that she regretted and was now trying to erase.   You have to understand that  the half-removed tattoo looks lots worse than the original tattoo ever did.   Its’ uglier than ugly.

So yesterday, I went into the laser doctor for the first treatment since I was pregnant.   He took one look at me (20 months after my last apearance in his office) and said, “YOU.   The one completely intollerant to any pain.”   (ok, the laser used to make me scream.) I fixed him with a steely glance and gritted my teeth.

You know, the pain of labor is just about the worse pain there is.   Consider laser tattoo removal a very close second.

Returning home to where my loving Mommy had been watching Kenny, I gingerly picked him up, my skin flaming with every move.   His perfect little face smiled up at me, unconditionally loving without artiface or judgement.

Oh what joy and bliss is this life!   Even through the pain I am filled with wonder at the beauty of us human beings.

And you’d better believe that my little boy is NEVER going to get a tattoo.