“Push present” is such a horrific term for a present given to a woman by her husband after she gives birth, don’t you think? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for jewels on any occasion, and having a baby seems like a worthwhile one, but somehow it simultaneously crass and as if Hallmark just came up with a new holiday.

That said, I love a memorial of any kind, and my most favorite kind is a tattoo. So I’ve been poking around quite a bit trying to figure on a tattoo to memorialize the birth of my baby (5 months old today), Louella Mae.

I’ve been getting tattooed for a few years now by Stephanie Tamez of Brooklyn Adorned, and I’m head over heels for her work. She totally gets what I’m going for: old-fashioned, flash-style tattoos but not too heavy-handed, a little femme. I absolutely want to get her on board to finish up my other arm.

Recently, I discovered the work of Bailey Hunter Robinson who works out of Saved. I’m nuts for his color work and his flowers which is sort of surprising given that all my tattoos so far are black and white. I’ve always thought that that’s because old photos of tattooed folks are in black and white, so even though I know that lots of the work was actually color, it still lives in black and white in my mind. So maybe it’s his tattoos’ straight off the Bowery charm that has me excited about color. I’m thinking of an arc of flowers over each shoulder…