Pinewood Derby 2011

It's Wednesday and we're finally starting to recuperate from our busy weekend of last. We knew it was going to be a crazy one, but it's been so long since we had something fun to do that we cherished the thoughts of finally having some fun.

Friday night we were supposed to go to a scout gathering where the derby cars would be weighed and measured to be ready for the pinewood derby on Saturday morning. By the time we got home from school on Friday afternoon, I was ready for the week to be done so we decided to stay home. As you will read in a few minutes, this decision cost Aaron in a bug way but I will elaborate in a moment.

Saturday morning started bright an dearly with Aaron's derby race set for 9 AM. We were told to come a half hour early to register our car if we didn't go Friday night. We got there very early. The judge looked at Aaron's car and said, "uh oh" which one never wants to hear. We had lost one of the official wheels from the kit so I had gone out to the scout store to get a new set of "official" wheels. I decided to get him blue, which turned out to NOT be official after all and we had to switch them then and there for black ones. The judge then suggested that I put a dab of glue on each axle to ensure that the wheels stay on. The races then began. Aaron's car led each race down the slope but fell behind each time it went flat, which I thought was strange. After the races, where he placed 6 out of 9, he came to me saying, "Mom, the wheel is stuck!" Sure enough, glue had seeped into the wheel and it didn't roll AT ALL. I figured that if he placed sixth with one stuck wheel, he for sure would have gotten at least the third place trophy if all four wheels had worked. After Steve got there from work, we decided to put the functional yet blue wheels back on so Aaron could play with his car on the practice track with the other scouts while we were waiting for Noah's race to start. On a whim, we asked if we could run the car down the official track just to get a sense of how well it would have done if I had bought the right color wheels. We should have never asked. Turns out that it would have not only won, but blown the other cars out of the water by eight seconds. VERY frustrating. I have to say that Aaron has handled this information way better than either Steve or I have.

Noah's race went off without a hitch and he was so incredibly excited when he won second place and got his first ever real trophy. He was higher than a kite! The smile on his face couldn't be beat. I was proud of him then because he went around to other kids and told them each that they did a goo job in the races too. The boys didn't want to leave when the races were over. They wanted to run their cars over and over on the practice track. Even though Noah left with a trophy and Aaron didn't, it was fun to watch the boys race their cars on the practice track because Aaron's beat EVERY other car, including Noah's, over and over again and Noah really couldn't brag since he knew in his heart that Aaron's car really was the award winner. The whole thing worked out really well.

Steve and I spent the day trying very hard to not think about the "should haves" surrounding the circumstances of Aaron's race. There are so many. We really had to take a lesson from Aaron, who did not spend the day being upset about not getting a trophy. He spent the day smiling big smiles because he had so much fun being a scout, playing with his new car, and sporting his award..."Coolest Car with Stars"

But look out next year...we're gonna take it all :)