I’m not saying we have tons of extra time like some childless couples do. But we do have long, long childful hours when we aren’t working, and we just learned that those hours will extend through the end of the school year. This means we’re thinking creatively, or maybe not-so-creatively, about how to spend All That Time.

Benji doesn’t naturally choose to draw or color carefully. He does enjoy drawing, filling (at a conservative estimate) thousands of random sheets of paper with doodles — but they’re all things like marble-race tracks, countries, or number blocks; all are based on YouTube videos he and Ian watch, and he does them all very hastily with a minimum of care.

But sometimes he and I like to color together. When I was recovering from my surgery, my sister sent me a coloring book of mythical creatures, and Benji and I spent time coloring that together. We’ve started doing that a bit again in some of our free time.

Doing that reminded me that I find coloring and drawing peaceful, so when the Seattle Times posted images for the teddy bear hunt, I happily downloaded, printed, and colored them. Benji declined to join me; he’s busy making a Lego Star Wars snowspeeder.