In the years that Julie has been a mom my cards have usually depicted Milo either incubating inside her or in the process of emerging from womb. This year, as Milo nears the age when he will regularly attend school (and as he becomes generally more independent) Julie and I will perhaps soon be able to resume a portion of our old life together. I see our love as for each other as having the potential to be reborn but forever changed by the process of having become parents.

This doodle was completed over several days in various coffee shops and at home. Milo wants to color it in, but I told him I had to scan it first. I wonder what he thinks that means.

On Valentine’s Day morning we went to a new little coffee shop in our neighborhood called Steeplechase. Located on the outskirts of Kensington just before Brooklyn spreads out with Greenwood Cemetery on one side and fast food chains and auto body shops on the other, they have great coffee and pastries and it’s not too crowded. The barista was a pleasantly slackerish fellow. Apparently Brooklyn is so hipster-saturated that now they even live and work the Kensington hinterlands. Remarkable. Julie and I got caffienated. Milo got hopped up on blueberry muffins. Then we hunkered down and set to work, to the sounds of tastefully generic indie-pop, on this collaborative valentine: