Tattoos and Raven

So I got my first tattoo on Thursday, March 11, 2010.

It wasn´t so bad actually. Let me walk you through the process...

I picked up Adiam to come along with me because she wanted to document the whole thing and my mom was afraid for me to go alone... Not sure why... but whatever. When we arrived, there were already 2 people ahead of me! And I came 17 minutes after they opened! But it was ok... I just had to wait until 2pm to get mine done... sadly...

Adiam and I went to Starbucks while we waited for my time to come. It was SO steamy in there, I thought my hair was going to frizz up!! When I returned, Kerry, the tattoo guy, was ready to GO! WOOO! I wasn´t... I started to freak out a little while filling out the paperwork but I got through it & made sure I wasn't signing anything that said I had to give up my liver.

So Kerry did the sketch of Mia's footprint, name stencil & we went back to the dungeon.

(and I saw his booty crack...)

He cleaned my back, placed the stencil on my shoulder and that's when my heart started to pound. I endured giving birth to Mia with NO medicine at all & no tears, half of my body was numb during the stitching & no tears; why was I so scared? I guess it was the unknown feeling THIS type of pain.

So Mr. Curly Head started with Mia's name. Small, easy & probably to get me used to the feeling. It wasn't too bad. It felt like a bunch of ant bites but nothing serious. Well... similar to someone poking you repeatedly with a sewing needle. Hurts, but tolerable.

Right after he finished the "a", he jumped RIGHT to the heel part of the foot in circular motions. Now that hurt more. It felt like a mechanical pencil (a pointy one) circling on my back. But after tensing for about a minute, I got used to it & it didn't hurt as much. But when he got to the toes, man. Them toes hurt! I don't know why! But the funny conversations we had during the process made it a lot more relaxing & faster. He's a pretty cool (and funny) guy. And don't forget that nappy hair! =D

He finished in about 20-30 minutes. It was really short & felt like only 5 minutes.. I think him setting up took longer than the actual tattoo! But I love it. The shading matches her actual footprint SO well, and he was a really nice guy, and he didn't charge me my life either. It was cheaper than I thought! I'd get another tattoo by him... Just not any time soon. I need to recover after this one, especially now that its going through it's nasty, peely, flakey, stage. UGH! Overall, the experience was wonderful, not too painful & I had a very nice time there. =]

That baby don't look like you...

It amazes me how much Mia does not look like me and how much she looks like her father, cousin and grandmother.

The only thing Mia and I have in common is our lovely shade of awkward brown that no concealer, foundation and powder ever seems to match. Just magnificent...

But when I pull her hair back, sometimes, she looks a lot like her grandmother. I guess it's a good thing I gave Mia her grandma's first name as her middle name. (lol) This is Grandma Phoukeo holding Mia Phoukeo.

You may not be able to see the resemblance, but when you see her laugh and Mia laugh, you can tell they are related. Even their eye shape is alike.

Now, Mia and her cousin look like brother and sister even though his dad and I look NOTHING alike. We couldn't even say we were related at all.

It's kinda strange, but cute. Because she looks like the girl version of him and he looks like the boy version of her. lol.

Here is Mia, her father and I. Now who does she look like? And don't be nice and say me... lol

When she was born, she looked like his clone. It was kind of scary because it looked like I had no genetic makeup within Mia at all for the first few days... then she turned extra black... But now she's normal shaded like me. =D

Really. Does she NOT look a lot like him? My point exactly.

But no matter how much Mia may not look like me, or people look at me awkwardly when we don't have the same last name (and if I say/spell her last name) or even stare when I tell her to "Maa, gin kao, or baw" rather than say "Come, eat or no", I know she is my little stink-stink. And no matter how much you look like your father and how much we fight and argue, I will still love my Mia P. Khaiphanliane no matter what. Shoot, I'm the one who almost passed out from the immense pain she put me through, she better be my stink-stink!! Hahaha. =]

Dear Mia,

You are a year and month old already, and running the house as if you are the queen already.

And as you grow more and more each day, I can't get over the fact that I have also. While I teach you how to color, how not to eat or pull on the curtains and how to say you alphabet, you are teaching me that nothing else in the world matters except for loving & caring for you, and my responsibility toward that.

You have taught me that instead of going and crying about everything that goes wrong, to just move on: I could have very well slipped into depression, self-mutilation, anxiety attack after the past 2 days have occurred, but I didn't. Of course I was disgusted, saddened, angry, but then I thought. "Why am I working up all these emotions & raising my blood pressure for someone/something that doesn't care. Doesn't care about how I am affected. Doesn't care about how you are affected?" It wasn't worth it. I put some drama ahead of the thoughts of you, and that is unacceptable. So I pushed that bull aside and kept thinking about what we will do on my day off and how you were at home while I was at work & school...

Sure, it would be nice if I could talk to you about how I feel about everything or even see how you feel about everything going on in your life that directly affect you even though you don't know it yet, but sadly, I'll be doing most of the talking. Sure, you will throw in the occasional "Dada? Baaaaa haa?! B-b-b-b-b." and my favorite, "My muh-muh!", but I'll be the story teller. You can be the commentator. Maybe we can go for a long ride sometime soon and I'll tell you the story of Mommy's life & how much better it is having you here with me.

If I could live all over again, starting from the beginning and choose what I want to happen, I wouldn't pass up when you were born. I might have changed some things between your father and I (especially since I know what I know now), and my financial crisis I got myself into, but I wouldn't even think of saying, "I wonder what my life would have been like without Mia" because if you had not been born, who knows where I would have ended up. I was going down a negative rode & I could tell, and you helped enlighten (not Buddha enlighten!) me enough to make me become a more mature, responsible, wise individual with a stronger character than I have ever thought I was capable of obtaining.

Although it was unexpected, thank you for coming into my life.

Love, Mommy.