Lessons in Loosing

Another year, another pinewood derby. This year we started working on the car nice and early so there was plenty of time. Grandpa was in town so E even had help sanding it for the perfect streamline effect. We had a couple of problems with the paint refusing to dry in the cold temps, but we got it figured out. This year we also waited until the last minute to put the wheels on. The wheels are the trickiest part of the entire process. The wood can splinter and they don't like to go in straight and it can cause all kinds of problems. Nate took it slow and steady and got the smoothed to perfection wheels and axels in perfectly. Then we hit the wheels with some graphite and checked that everything was balanced and looked good. I think there were around 20 cars racing that night and each kid got to race on all 4 lanes twice, so it took awhile. You can see by the pics how we were entertaining ourselves. Jordyn and Ethan were playing with tape and we were acting like dorks. Bro Dick didn't dissapoint again this year with his car cake and hand made trophies. Now we just needed a little luck.

Ethan was up for his first race, which, by the way, was recorded for ease in watching on a projector and having access for instant replays, and woo hoo, he took first! We couldn't believe it. We never have come in first. There was high fives and screams and jumps. We were pretty excited and quickly ditched our plans for coming in last place. We are the kind of twisted family that goes for last place. Anywhere in the middle is boring, so why not shoot for last. Well, like I said, that plan was now ditched. Could our luck be repeated? Second race, 1st place. Third race, 1st place. Fourth race, 1st place. Now we are getting pretty excited and thinking we've got this in the bag. This goes on for 6 races. Then…..dun dun dun……I decided to have Ethan recreate him showing me 6 fingers in the air so I could capture his excitement on film. But, when I called his name he had just been handed his car from off the track and when he turned around his brother was turning back toward him and their hands collieded and BAM, the car dropped on the floor. Nathan was in emergency fix mode while I was trying to get the picture of the 6 on Ethan and you can see the distress on E's face. For his final 2 races of the night, he came in 4th place. The way the point system worked out coming in 4th 2x was enough to kill his score and it knocked him down to 4th overall. He had beat every kid that won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I have never seen a kid so broken hearted. He was trying so hard to keep it together while standig up to get his trophy. 1 small mistake or misstep can completely change the course of things. Life is never fair and you never know how things are going to work out. One thing is for sure though. Life is full of losses. He got lots of hugs and we talked about how what happened was an accident and that it was no ones fault. Sometimes crap happens, but his family loves him and we are proud of him and we know what to do differently next time. Poor little guy would recover and then just start weeping, even while we were at icecream celebrating 4th place. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to view things, life was designed to be hard and unfair, it's how we deal with it and who it shapes us into that matters.