Simple and sleek

So today was another busy day, but a successful one again. After two extra cruddy days at school, the boy's spirits were low, very low, and he needed some drops in his bucket for sure. Between hitting his head a combined two day total of at least 8 times, one of which required a call from his teacher, not getting any awards on awards day, having a classmate drink his milk AGAIN, overthinking his classwork and issues on the playground, he was done. So when we got up this morning to ready ourselves for his very first Pinewood Derby, I was worried. I told the hub that I just prayed he did at least kind of okay. Oftentimes this event can be one of frustration if parents get over involved and you find your child's car(that he did everything on except use the table saw) and someone else's car (with a hand carved spoiler and a paint and poly job worthy of display in the Louvre) up against each other and you worry. But the boy had a plan and he knew what he wanted. Thank God for a husband who is a wonderful carpenter and who was able to decipher the boy's rather phallic drawings into a paper design that got the boy's stamp of approval. He helped him use the tools that would cause amputation and instructed him in the proper way to trim down the size, add weight, paint it and add the wheels(and put the messy graphite on in the yard). It was one color, no stickers or embellishments. Just simple and sleek. Race time came and we found ourselves trying to get him to set his expectations low and be surprised if the outcome was different. Shame on us. The first race he ran? Second place. He was THRILLED. Each car got to run in four races in their den group so they could try out all four lanes. He hept being consistently second and sometimes first. How 'bout that? By the end, he was in the finals and wound up third place overall out of maybe 26 cars. Shame on me for worrying his car wasn't flashy or goopy enough. Shame on me. I will say he needs to name his next one. My two favorite names today were "Kermit" and the "Black Death". The boy his riding high on Derby success. It was wonderful to see. He is the cutest darn thing and loves being a scout!



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