96 Colors and Then Some

One of Connor's favorite hobbies is to "draw," by which he means "color." I try to explain to him that someone else drew the solid black lines, and all he is doing is coloring in those lines. He nods his head in agreement and says, "So do you wanna draw with me?" And I say yes. Because I, too, love to color in coloring books. My mom says I always have, and I believe I always will. I tend to take it seriously, as does Connor, and both of us always want to display our art when it is done. Sadly, the underlying reason that Connor and I love to color, and insist on confusing it with art, is that neither one of us can draw for shit. I can barely crap out a stick figure, and Connor isn't even that advanced- what he calls a stick person is clearly just a blob with eyes and feet.


But when we open that magical box of 96 crayons, we can pretend that we are doing something worth looking at, that we are making Lightning McQueen into something special by coloring him inchworm green instead of his usual red. We fight over the cornflower, the electric pink, the mahogany. We concentrate on staying in the lines, because those of us with no artistic vision can not tolerate scribble-scrabble. And when we're done, we admire our work with wonder, proud of what we have created.

I hope, for Connor's sake, that he inherits some talent in the arts from his father. It'll have to be an aptitude for music, though. Unfortunately, Chip can't draw for shit.