Cub Scout Space Derby

Last night was Ben’s space derby. We do not take these things lightly at our house. I think part of it is that we know we only get one chance to do cub scouts, so we want to do it right. The rest of it is that we (mostly Nate) are fairly competitive. Nate was always bummed as a kid because they did the pinewood derby every year and he really wanted to do the rockets and the boats. This was his big chance. I was so proud of him for letting Ben do most of the work on this project. Ben sanded it and painted it and helped Nate cut the fins. Once the body was ready to go, Nate jumped into test pilot mode. He strung up a piece of fishing line from our kitchen cabinets to the shower rod in the kids’ bathroom and ran a whole series of test flights varying the number of rubber bands, the number of rotations, the winding technique, the amount of glycerin on the bands, etc. My job was to work the stop watch (and laugh at my cute husband).

As we left the house for pack meeting, Nate piled a bunch of tools, string, superglue, wire, rubber bands, and his cordless drill into a box to take to the church. I laughed. He assured me that “every dad will have a tool box.” Nope. There were a couple of other dads who brought a drill or a pair of pliers, but Nate’s little assortment was one of a kind! Even though I mocked him, it was good he took it all. Lots of dads made use of his quality collection of supplies.

The short story is that Ben won first place. Wahoo! He got a quality blue ribbon (just like every other boy, but don’t get Nate started on the societal trend of “everyone is a winner . . . we don’t want to hurt someone’s self-esteem by having 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place”). I laughed because four or five different people asked Nate if he was an engineer. No. He’s just a cute, analytical, anal-retentive nerd (that I love!).

Ben was mostly excited about getting his Progress Toward Ranks award with three beads. He just needs to finish up a couple more requirements to get his Wolf badge. He can hardly wait. For the past week he has woken me up every morning with his scout book in hand asking if we can work on some requirement. I’m glad he is enthusiastic.