Relaxing for the Left-Brained

You’ve probably seen the latest craze among grown ups of all ages — coloring books! And these aren’t your average coloring books full of Disney characters and superheroes (which is kind of redundant, since Disney has bought up all the superheroes it seems. But that’s neither here nor there.) I’ll admit, I’ve been somewhat tempted by a few of them – there’s one book in particular that has some amazingly intricate paisleys that I think would be a delight to color, if I had just the right kind of coloring devices. (Pencils, maybe? I’m thinking not crayons or markers.) But…I’ll admit that coloring books have never really been my thing.

About the time that everyone else was glomming on to the coloring book fad, my sister bought this for my eldest son. He is a HUGE dot-to-dot fan and, at the time, we were working on counting past a few hundred (because he gets distracted easily and gives up. Or just stops.) He did the first one and then kind of petered out, so he said I could do one if I wanted.

It was love at first dot.

There are people out there who swear to the calming nature of coloring books. Well, for me, it’s dot-to-dot. I love the easy ordering and the fact that everything falls into a predictable pattern. (After all, 7 will always come after 6.) And since you’re connecting dots, there are no harrowing decisions like what color to choose and will it clash with the other color that’s part of the pattern? (Yes, these things bother me when I’m coloring. Yes, I know it’s not normal.)

And so, there have been many delightful hours spent chasing dots and drawing lines as I created pictures of far off locales like Amsterdam and Athens and Barcelona (not pictured.)

If you’ve been looking for something like an adult coloring book but are thinking maybe that’s a tad too right-brained for you, I heartily recommend seeking out a grown up connect the dots book.