The Pinewood Derby Subtitled: Boy Scouts; My OTHER Part Time Job

Last weekend, Jack had his Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. For those of you who don't know, you are basically given a block of wood, told to carve into a racing vehicle and expected to race to win at a bit "Pack" event. There is a lot involved, apparently, and for a person whose missing anything resembling a creativity gene, it's also very overwhelming.

Thus, Jack was allowed to design the car himself. John had to help him carve it, but we made Jack do everything else "all by himself", sorta. His orginal idea was to design a racing army Tank with the Monopoly Guy driving it. We couldn't find a Monopoly guy, but went ahead with the tank design, even though tanks aren't particularly known for their speed in Taladega.

John cut it, or carved it, or sawed it, or whatever it is. Jack had to sand it and paint it on his own. Here he is heading out to race his tank.

This is an aerial shot. He did all that camo work on his own. Check out the gun on top. Sweet. Side view. He wanted a star on it, so I helped with that. It looks like a glittery blob. How embarrassing.

This is something I wanted him to be proud of. At the race (which by the way lasts ALL day because you have to do several heats, etc) you can certainly tell which cars are kid created, and which kids had a bit more help. And by a bit more I mean some parents pretty much live uber vicariously thru their kids, and that is not how we roll over here. The cars are weighed (it's a BIG deal) and at the last second Jack was hot glue gunning pennies to the underbelly of the tank. There is some sort of serious science and strategy involved that I can not process in my pea brain, so Jack didn't really win anything per se. Their was a design competition, and the only way he's going to win that is if they really vote on if the cars look like they were kid created. Otherwise, we haven't a hope in Hell. There were some really cool designs. I think he was proud, even if he lost. I stressed to him how proud I was that he designed it and created something so cool all on his own. AND in my book you get creativity points for having the idea of a racing tank complete with a gun on top and potentially the Monopoly Guy driving it. Now, I have to run. I have another Boy Scout meeting to attend tonight. And events this weekend, and the following two weekends, Fridays and Saturdays.

Really, busy moms are totally underpaid.