For the last time

 Sometimes when you do something for the last time, it is with a certain melancholy.

Sometimes, not so much.

Pinewood Derby, not so much.

Tuesday night was Mark's last.

(I sincerely apologize to Olivia for gloating.  My math skills aren't sufficient to calculate how many Pinewood Derbies are in her future.)

(On the upside, Olivia, the boy who was cleaning up at our Pinewood Derby is the fifth son in his family.  You eventually get the kinks worked out, I guess.)

There are parts of the Pinewood Derby that we enjoy.  The planning, for one.  Mark wanted to go on Pinterest to look for ideas.  I felt like I was doing something right as a mother that he knew where to look.  He found a few ideas and I gently steered him toward the easiest.

He and Adam planned and plotted.  They sent me to Hobby Lobby with specific instructions as to the wooden discs they needed me to purchase.  And when I say specific, I mean specific.  Adam has these perfectionist tendencies that occasionally crop up.  They show up in our kids from time to time too. (Except for Braeden...he got a double dose of his mother's tendency to say "close enough.")  Mark and Adam measured carefully.

(Again, Braeden or I would never do that.)

They both loved the exactness of it all.  I thought about Grandpa Linn.  That's where those two got their skills with a ruler.

Painting proved a little problematic.  Adam used a silver-chrome color as a primer (because we had some in the garage) but then the desired red color wouldn't adhere to the chrome color.  He was ready to completely start from scratch, with a different car kit.  (This of course mystified Braeden and me...even Emma thought it was a little nuts.  Even Emma.)

We all convinced Adam it was good enough, so he left it silver.

Before the big night, I talked to Mark at length about his behavior at the Pinewood Derby.  We are all really good at these sort of conversations--we've had a lot of them.  I caution Mark not to run around like a crazy person and he amiably agrees not to, then he runs around like a crazy person.  I said, "Last year every picture I had of you at the Pinewood Derby, your face was bright red from running around.  I want this year to be different."

"Got it," he said, "I will make sure you take my picture before I run around."

"No! That's not what I mean.  I don't. Want. You. To. Run. Around."

"Oh."

(See?  This is what effective parenting looks like. It's so effective we have to repeat it over and over and over.  And over.)

Here's the line-up of race cars:

Mark's car looks deceptively aerodynamic but it was really (really) slow.  I told Braeden that up in heaven, Grandpa Linn was hanging his head in shame.

Mark still had a good time.  And look at him--his cheeks are nice and rosy like a Mark's cheeks should be and he's not running around like a crazy person!

I had the important job of being the starting judge.  If I could have figured out a way to cheat and have Mark win at least one race (or not come in dead last) I would have done it.  If for no other reason, then for Grandpa Linn, up in heaven, hanging his head in shame.

In the picture below, I look like I'm supplicating the heavens for Divine intervention on behalf of Mark's car but that's how I stand when I have cold hands.  It looks stupid and I should either stop doing it or move to a warmer climate.  Or wear gloves?

Braeden was wearing Mark's too small hat and standing by me, making me laugh.  Every time I told him to take the hat off he'd do an Elmer Fudd impersonation.  (Also, does anyone besides me wonder why I have two shirts and a sweater on and I have cold hands and my off-spring is standing there comfortably in a t-shirt and shorts.  Does that goofy hat provide warmth?

Mark lost every race and saw right through his phony award for "Car that looks most like a Lego."  (The kind of award that's made up on the spot so every boy feels accomplished.)

I said, "Well Mark, you win some and you lose some."

He smiled and with a twinkle in his brown eyes said, "Or, you win none and you lose all."

I wouldn't trade that boy for all the winning-est Pinewood Derby cars in the world.

(And I'm pretty sure Grandpa Linn, up in heaven, would agree.)