Pinewood Derby

This year, the Cub Scout Leader (who is also our RS president, and homeschooler mother of 6) and I tried to simplify things for us both and have the Pinewood Derby NOT be an entire branch activity and keep the entrants just to the cubscouts. We held it on their weekly meeting and invited their families to attend.  The boys and Chris had big plans this year to really do all the suggested extra steps to make their cars fast. They watched Youtube videos and everything. But again, with the remodel and Disneyland, it was hard to find the time to actually work on them besides cutting them out of the blocks of wood. So the night before the Pinewood Derby they found themselves, putting the wheels on, greasing, tilting the anxels, weighing, lifting up one wheel...whatever-else-ing them. It was very generous of Chris to take this time to do it since we had just gotten the surprising news that our Contractor was ready to start in the morning and we needed to move out entirely from the kitchen, family and craft rooms.  They boys were pleased with their cars and excited for the race the next day after school.

Wednesdays are crazy anyway because we get our friend Dash from school and keep him for a few hours until his mom (and my good friend) is done with work, and we also have piano lessons from 3:30-5:00 and Cubscouts in the middle of that from 4:30-5:30.

The Derby was successful from the standpoint that the boys got to race their cars lots of times and be more involved. It was a little chaotic in between official runs as the track wasn't protected and so scouts and siblings would sometimes disrupt or crash runs. As a result, the cars got pretty hammered and Charlie's car was pretty fragile and the wheels kept falling off.  The winning car was actually a repeat car (without any changes) that also won last year. We might have to change the rules for next year or something. Malina and I tried to think of good rewards for everyone and gave them out in order of fastest to slowest, letting the boys choose a candy bar in the same order.

Turns out, Alec and Charlie's cars were the slowest, most break-able ones and to say they were disappointed is a big understatement.  Charlie was in tears a lot, inconsolable and slightly angry.  Alec was sullen and SO mad AT Chris. He almost refused to come into the gym to participate in the official races. He quietly yelled at and hit/kicked Chris telling him something along the lines of 'you must hate me because you purposefully made a bad car so that I would lose..because you wanted me to lose.'  Poor Chris! He felt bad and a little embarrassed that his attempts to make really fast cars didn't turn out well and mostly stayed out in the foyer during the races....but then he had to deal with the kids backlashes towards him too. He stayed patient and quiet the whole time but I could see it was draining.  We usually only have a 20 minute window to eat dinner together on Wednesdays between Cubscouts and Chris needing to leave to go to Young Mens. Without a kitchen or any dinner plans, neither of us was looking forward to dinner at home with the kids.... but with the kids crazy bad behavior I didn't feel we could just go out to eat at a restaurant either. So I gave Chris a hug and told him to go eat out by himself and have a few quiet moments before Young Mens and I would take the kids home and figure out dinner on my own. Chris was really touched by my offer and the fact that he took me up on it is a testament to how much he needed it.  I gave the boys a good talking to in the car on the way home and it was then that Alec was able to verbalize his feelings (albeit still very angrily) and I tried to help them put the afternoons events into perspective.   Life lessons like losing are hard to learn, but also such good practice and experiences for the soul.