Pinewood Derby

**Technically our Pinewood Derby was weeks ago.  I wrote this but didn't edit it until now, so it's a few weeks behind... 

Where to start on this subject???  As a kid I remember going to the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby and watching my brothers participate.  It was so exciting and the scouts LOVED it, heck I loved it.  My son is in scouts, he has been going on 3 years.  This is the first year we got around to making the car....

Making the car was an interesting experience.  With Jay's travel schedule and our procrastination it ended up being something I had to help Aaron with (poor, poor kid).  It consisted of a lot of convincing Aaron it was worth it to make the car, arguing with him about doing his best and not being sloppy, me trying not to take over and just do it all (which I am pretty sure a lot of the dads did...just saying a 4th grader can't paint as good as I saw some of those cars) and doing research online by watching youtube videos (which we found out later were out dated- using pennies for weights was so years ago).

I know I have strong opinions about every kid doesn't need a trophy, but I will say when it is your kid not getting the trophy it is a little hard.  It's not that I want him rewarded for something he didn't do, it just hurts my mommy heart a little to see his slumped shoulders, and head down as his car consistently came in 4th in each heat (out of 4...).  Although I did threaten talk to him before the derby about working on his best sportsmanship ( I had a feeling our car wouldn't do so great, especially since our wheels weren't are straight- ahhh poor Aaron).   He did perk up and ended up having fun...until they handed out certificates to all the boys.  So any boy that didn't get a trophy they gave them a certificate with a "unique" award.  I was laughing before they even got to him because they would have to be pretty creative to come up with something for his car.   They called his name and he got.... "the best 5 cent car".... the look on his face.  He came up to me and said they were being rude -he thought they meant it looked like it only cost 5 pennies but I quickly explained they were talking about the 5 pennies we had glued to the back and bottom of the car.

Best 5 Cent Car!  

It was an interesting experience, seeing how into it the dads got, I heard more than one dad say, "I hope to get better than 3rd this year".... I kind of wanted to correct them and say, you mean you hope your SON gets better than 3rd. haha, but really I had some stake in it as well.  I wanted to get better than 4th on each of the heats, I mean I put some sweat, tears and stress into that dang car.

Cheers to a fun, well organized night!  Aaron already has his idea for his car next year.  Should we start on it now so that the night of weigh in next year we aren't frantically finishing his car.